A court in London has thrown out an anti-Israel group’s lawsuit, which the court said was “politically motivated,” against a dual U.K.-Israeli citizen who’d served in Israel’s army, the London newspaper Telegraph reported on Saturday.
The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) petitioned the court to issue a summons to begin a prosecution against the man, invoking the Foreign Enlistment Act 1870 (FEA), the Telegraph reported on Saturday. It was enacted in the Victorian era to prevent British nationals from being deployed as mercenaries abroad.
The ruling was delivered on Friday based on a hearing that concluded last month, according to the Telegraph.
Paul Goldspring, the senior district judge, dismissed the attempt to prosecute the soldier, describing the ICJP’s application as “an abuse of the process of the court, driven by an improper motive and facilitated by serious breaches of the duty of candor,” the Telegraph quoted from the ruling.
The defendant, who was not named by the report, broke off a short visit to Britain and returned to Israel to rejoin his army unit as a reservist the day after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks, according to the report.
A spokesman for U.K. Lawyers for Israel told the Telegraph, “This judgment provides important reassurance for British-Israeli nationals who serve in the IDF, particularly reservists who return to duty in times of crisis. The court has made clear that such individuals are not to be treated as having unlawfully enlisted in the armed forces of a foreign state.”
Separately, the Hind Rajab Foundation, another anti-Israel group with chapters in several countries, said on Friday that it had filed a complaint with authorities in Sri Lanka against an Israeli-American IDF soldier, who the group said was visiting the country. The local chapter of the group accused the man of war crimes allegedly committed in the Gaza Strip.
Hind Rajab specializes in tracking Israelis on social media and then complaining about them to the police or using other forms of “lawfare” against them to promote the anti-Israel war crimes narrative, which Israel and some of its allies have rejected outright.
