An Arab living in Israel has been sentenced to 18 months in prison for having consensual sex with an Israeli woman who apparently believed he was Jewish.

Sabbar Kashur was sentenced on Monday after being convicted of "rape by deception".

According to the court, Kashur met a Jewish woman in Jerusalem in 2008 and introduced himself as a single Jew looking for a serious relationship. The two had sex in a nearby building.

The woman filed a criminal complaint after learning Kashur was Arab, not Jewish.

Prosecutors acknowledged that the sex was consensual, but accused him of misrepresenting himself.

The court agreed, sentencing Kashur despite acknowledging that his case was not "a classical rape by force".

"If she hadn’t thought the accused was a Jewish bachelor interested in a serious romantic relationship, she would not have co-operated," the judges said in their ruling.

"The court must protect the public interest against sophisticated criminals with a smooth tongue and sweet talking, who can lead astray innocent victims."

'Deceit'

The Israeli criminal code mentions "deceit" as a possible aggravating factor in sexual assault cases and the verdict in Kashur's case is not the first time an Israeli court has sentenced a man for "rape by deception," according to several Israeli lawyers.

The most notable case was in 2008, when Israel's high court of justice upheld the conviction of Zvi Sleiman, a man who impersonated a housing ministry official and promised women apartments and benefits in exchange for sex.

A rape conviction sentence could be upheld, the court ruled, when "a person lies does not tell the truth regarding critical matters to a reasonable woman".

Several other men have been convicted of "rape by deception" since that ruling.

But the Kashur case appears to be the first time a person's race has been used as the determining factor.

"In this case, the ruling seems to say that if a 'reasonable' Jewish woman knew a man was an Arab, then she would not make love to him," Abeer Baker, an attorney with Adalah, an organisation that advocates for Arab rights in Israel, said.

Baker called it a "dangerous precedent," saying it would allow the Israeli government to interfere in the private lives of citizens.

"It's interfering in a very intimate, personal decision," she said. "That should be made between two people. The court should not interfere."

Open hostility

Similar laws have been controversial in other countries, as well. A man in the United States was convicted in 2007 of impersonating his brother in order to have sex with his girlfriend. That conviction was overturned on appeal, though, after an appellate court ruled that rape laws apply only to non-consensual sex.

Kashur's case also highlights the open hostility with which many Israeli Jews view mixed relationships with Arabs, who make up one-fifth of the population of Israel.

A poll conducted in 2007 by Israel's Geocartography Institute found that more than 50 per cent of Israeli Jews thought marrying an Arab was "equal to national treason". Jews are legally forbidden to intermarry in Israel.

The Sunday Times reported in 2009 on a squad of "vigilantes" in the Jewish settlement of Pisgat Zeev. The group has patrolled the streets for more than a decade looking for mixed couples.

And in 2009, the town of Petah Tikva established a team of counsellors and psychologists to "rescue" Jewish women from relationships with Arab men.

The Israeli daily Maariv reported in February that Tel Aviv had launched a similar programme.

Gideon Levy, a liberal columnist with the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, said the "rape by deception" law would have been applied differently if a Jewish man had sex with an Arab woman under false pretences.

"Would he have been convicted of rape?" Levy asked. "The answer is: of course not."

The head of the Arab League has said that Palestinians cannot move into direct peace talks with Israel unless "written guarantees" are given beforehand.

Amr Mussa, the secretary general of the 22-member pan-Arab organisation, spoke in Cairo as Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, held meetings aimed at breathing new life into the stalled peace process.  

Mubarak spent Sunday in talks with Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister and George Mitchell, the US envoy to the Middle East peace process.

Israel and the US had hoped they could persuade the Arab League to back a Palestinian return to the negotiating table without preconditions, but after a meeting with Mitchell, Mussa dismissed the idea.

"We cannot automatically move from one negotiation to another without written guarantees," Mussa, whose organisation backed indirect talks between Israel and the Palestinians in May, said.

Resuming direct talks

Ahmed Aboul Gheit, the Egyptian foreign minister, said after the meetings that no breakthrough had been achieved.

"We are still hopeful that we can bridge this gap. The gap between the needs for security for Israel and the borders for the Palestinians," he said.

Al Jazeera's Ayman Mohyeldin, reporting from Egypt, said that it looked as though the Palestinians would not be tempted back to negotiations without specific guarantees on crucial issues such as borders, settlements and security assistance.

"So far the indications are that not enough progress has been made to warrant moving from proximity talks to direct talks," he said. 

In an interview with the Jordanian newspaper Al-Ghad on Saturday, Abbas laid out a number of conditions for negotiations with Israel. He said he would resume direct talks if Israel agreed to the borders prior to the 1967 Middle East war as the basis for a Palestinian state.

He also requested an international force deployed along the border to protect the Palestinian state.

"If they agree to that, we will consider that acceptable progress, and we will move to direct negotiations," Abbas told the newspaper.

Abbas made no mention of requiring Israel to freeze settlement growth, which has long been a precondition for direct talks. The 10-month suspension of new settlement activity in the occupied West Bank, announced last year by Netanyahu, will end in September.

Yasser Abd Rabbo, a senior Palestinian official, told Al Jazeera he wants the United States to clarify its position on several issues, including borders, before resuming direct talks.

Gaza disengagement plan

Looming over Sunday's meeting between Netanyahu and Mubarak was a proposal by Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, to cut all ties with Gaza.

Lieberman leaked the proposal to the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth, calling it a "second disengagement" from the Gaza Strip.

Israel would seal its land border with Gaza, and lift its naval blockade of the territory, while European countries would be asked to take the lead on reconstructing Gaza's economy, decimated by years of war and blockade.

The plan is unpopular with the Egyptian government, because it would force Cairo to take greater responsibility for Gaza.

Netanyahu has already sought to distance himself from the proposal, saying it had not received his approval.

"Policies on this matter are set by the prime minister and the cabinet... that's how it has always been, and that's how it will remain," an aide told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.