MANCHESTER (Dispatches) – A court in the UK is set to hear an appeal in the asylum case of a young Jew from the Israeli-occupied territories who fears he will be conscripted and forced to commit war crimes if he is deported from Britain back to the occupied territories.
Lawyers for the 21-year-old rabbinical student, who has been granted an anonymity order, say he fled the occupied territories in 2017 after he received a letter requiring him to report for military service.
His initial asylum claim was refused by British Home Secretary Priti Patel in December 2020 and he is now appealing. His case is scheduled to be heard by an immigration appeals court in Manchester on Monday.
His lawyers will also argue that their client is specifically concerned that he would be coerced to commit the crime of apartheid, an unprecedented argument for a UK asylum case involving the Zionist regime and one which could impact future cases.
“Our client is attempting to prove his case in the context of Israel operating as an apartheid regime,” said Fahad Ansari, a solicitor with UK-based Riverway Law, which is representing the student.
“Unfortunately, in any asylum appeal involving Palestinians, whether they be from the West Bank or Gaza, there is never any discussion about the elephant in the room: the apartheid nature of Israel, which is ultimately the source of Palestinian suffering and flight from their land.”
Ansari says his client rejects Zionism and the occupying regime’s existence based both on his political beliefs and his Jewish faith, which teaches that Jews should not return en masse to Palestine until the return of the messiah.
For decades, Jews were exempt from serving in the Zionist regime’s army. But in recent years, there has been fierce debate and legal wrangling over the issue.