Palestinian citizen of Israel granted UK asylum in case said to be unprecedented
GuardianMar 12
A Palestinian citizen of Israel has been granted asylum in the UK after his lawyers claimed he would face persecution if he were forced to return to "an apartheid state."
The 24-year-old Palestinian student, identified in court papers as Hasan, had said that he actively campaigns for the Palestinian cause in Britain and that his anti-Zionist political views put him at an increased risk of persecution in Israel.
The outcome of Hasan's case calls into question the ethics of nearly all of the UK's foreign policy interactions with Israel. The UK has long been a strong ally of Israel and has defended the country as being the Middle East's only democracy. By validating Hasan's fears of persecution in Israel, the Home Office has contradicted previous arguments that Israel doesn't institute an apartheid system.
Palestinian Israelis are actively engrained in every aspect of life in Israel and enjoy the same rights as their Jewish peers. While it's true that citizens of the Palestinian Authority, who were previously allowed work permits to be gainfully employed in Israel, are now barred from working in the country, this isn't apartheid but simply a logical security and foreign policy decision following the heinous Oct. 7 terror attack.
There's a 32% chance that Israel will recognize Palestine by 2070, according to the Metaculus prediction community.