A Manchester court in United Kingdom (UK) on Monday would be hearing an appeal for an asylum case filed by an Israeli man, who sought refuge in Britain to avoid conscription in the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in 2017.
Lawyers of a 21-year-old Jewish student, who has been granted anonymity rights, told the Middle East Eye that their client feared he would be complicit in war crimes against Palestine. Fahad Ansari, a lawyer at Riverway Law firm, said that the appeal would be contextualized on the student’s belief that Israel was an ‘apartheid state’. The rabbinical student has maintained that Zionism was against his beliefs as he was forbidden by God to return to Palestine till the ‘Messiah’ returned.
The solicitor also said that their client feared ostracization if forced to return to Israel. The student had previously participated in anti-Zionism demonstrations in Israel and was brutally beaten in police custody for doing so.
Ansari told the news outlet that case was contentious because his client’s argument required deliberation on whether Israel was an apartheid state to begin with. The lawyer added that the case was seminal in determining the fate of similar future appeals that were grounded in the Israel-Palestine conflict.
According to a report formulated for the case by a University of Exetor professor Ilan Pappe, refusing army service could land the student in jail for up to 15 years. Pappe says that the man would also be tortured in prison for being an Orthodox Jew.
The situation facing the UK court is unique, even though the student refusing conscription is not novel. Israeli human rights lawyer Michael Sfard told the media outlet that there were many like the student who were labelled ‘refuseniks’ for deserting the army in fears that they would be involved in crimes against humanity.
This is the second time the young Israeli’s appeal would be heard after the initial asylum claim was dismissed by British Home Secretary Priti Patel in December 2020.
