Saber Kashour, 30, a married Arab man, was recently convicted in Israeli court after he had consensual sex with a Jewish woman to whom he'd lied about his religion and marital status.
He was sentenced to 18 months in jail, but his lawyer, Adnan Aladdin, said that's too much.
"According to the bargain, he should be punished, but we expect him to receive community service on appeal in about 30 days' time," Aladdin said.
Legal experts in Israel told CNN the 'rape by deception' law isn't meant to be used like this.
“Criminal law rarely applies to minor lies, like dyed hair or a changed name... But it would apply to the more meaningful lies,” said Dana Pugach of the Noga Legal Center for Victims of Crime.
"For example, where a doctor persuades a woman to have sex claiming it would be a part of the medical treatment.”
Only one other person has been convicted of rape by deception — Zvi Sliman, in 2008, for impersonating an official in the housing ministry and promising women help and benefits in exchange for sex.
However, Pugach said the fact that he is married doesn't bode well for Kashour.
“It is not the fact that he was an Arab and claimed to be Jewish. The court emphasized the fact that he claimed to be single while he was married, which would be relevant in the context of a romantic relationship."
Leah Samael, a lawyer specializing in civil rights and human rights cases, told CNN this is an issue of entrenched racism, as a Jewish man pretending not be be Jewish would never end up in court.
"The thing that interests me in the case is the need, the necessity, of Arabs in Israel to pretend. To speak without an accent so as not to be seen as Arabs. To dress not to look like Arabs."
Kashour said he feels bad about what he did, but is reeling from what he considers the unfairness of the punishment.
"If I told the woman I was a pilot and later she finds out that I was not a pilot, then she goes and says that 'He raped me'? If I told her that I was a millionaire and it turns out that I am a poor man, then she goes and says that 'He raped me'?"
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