A Palestinian citizen of Israel and his fiance, a Jewish Israeli who converted to Islam, have turned to the courts to try and prevent a protest planned at their wedding Sunday night, Haaretz reported.

As I reported here Thursday, the anti-miscegenation, anti-Arab group Lehava publicized the couple’s wedding invitation on social media in full with date and location and called on supporters to show up and protest the union. It doesn’t interest them that the bride has converted and no longer considers herself a Jew, or that they are two consenting adults who wish to spend their lives together. As far as they are concerned, she is an apostate who must be saved from this Muslim man.

The couple requested that the court not only issue an injunction against the protest but also against the group for the harassment they have been subjected to. Along with some of their family members, the two have reportedly received death threats over the phone. As a result, before turning to the court, they were required by the police to hire 33 security guards at a cost of NIS 15,000, of which the wedding hall will pay half.

According to a report in Channel 2 (Hebrew), the judge decided to let the protest go ahead, but ordered it take place 200 meters from the wedding hall so as to prevent any friction between the wedding goers and the protesters. The judge also said that if in fact it is proven that the couple has been harassed and threatened, it will be considered a crime.

The groom, Mahmoud Mansour, told Haaretz: “We’ve been together for five years, but we’ve never encountered such racism. I always knew there were racists, but as long as you’re not affected by it, until you feel it in your own body, you don’t know what it is.”

Related:

Palestinian-Jewish couple hires wedding security for fear of anti-miscegenation group

Jewish anti-miscegenation groups distribute racist, sexist flyers

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