UK Grants Asylum to Palestinian Citizen of Israel

Facts

• 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.'¹
• 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.²
• Though he has lived in the UK for over two decades, Hasan first applied for asylum in 2019. The Home Officer rejected his persecution claim in 2022. Following the Oct. 7 attack, Hasan's lawyers submitted new evidence to support his claim, and the previous decision was overturned.³
• The case, which invoked both the UN's 1951 Refugee Convention and the European Convention on Human Rights, could set a precedent for additional Palestinians seeking refuge from the Israeli government in the UK and other countries.⁴
• Franck Magennis, Hasan's lawyer, said that while it's common for Palestinians from Gaza to be granted asylum in the UK, this is the first case, to his knowledge, in which a Palestinian citizen of Israel had applied for asylum.⁵
• Around 20% of Israel's population, approximately 1.6M people, identify as Palestinian. These citizens participate in the country's political life, and Israel rejects claims that it implements apartheid-like policies towards its Palestinian population.³

Sources: ¹Scottish Legal News, ²Middle East Eye, ³Al Jazeera, ⁴www.arabnews.com and ⁵Guardian.

Narratives

• Establishment-critical narrative, as provided by Guardian. 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.
• Pro-establishment narrative, as provided by The Jewish Press. 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.

Predictions