First report:

Sabar Kashour, convicted of rape after posing as a single Jewish male, petitioned the High Court of Justice Thursday in a bid to reduce his 18-month prison sentence, Ynet learned.

According to the appeal, the conviction prompted global outcry and led to accusations that Israel's legal establishment is racist.

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Attorney Elkana Laist is claiming that the District Court's sentence went much beyond the norm, given that his client engaged in consensual sexual relations with the complainant.

"It's hard to believe that a person who engaged in sex a few minutes after the initial meeting gave much weight to the statement that her partner was interested in a serious relationship," the attorney said.

The judges who sentenced Kashour ruled that he showed basic human indifference towards his victim, yet the appeal charges that this statement constituted "an outdated, patriarchal worldview whereby only a man can enjoy sex, while the woman cannot enjoy it at all and would only consent in exchange for a promise of a relationship, and only as long as this relationship involves a man of identical ethnicity"

The appeal also argues that the court did not give enough weight to the fact that the meeting between Kashour and the woman was random, rather than a case of pre-planned fraud.

"We are dealing with a man who has no criminal record and a one-time offence that did not involve the use of force and that was mostly about presenting a false image," the appeal says.

Given the arguments presented in the appeal, Kashour is asking the court to significantly reduce the sentence and annul the 18-month jail term, leaving only a conditional sentence in place.