In the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack on southern Israel, thousands of Israeli military reservists stranded abroad scrambled to make their way home and report for duty. One such reservist, a British-Israeli citizen, faced possible prison time when an anti-Israel NGO attempted to prosecute him for violating an obscure, Victorian-era law.
The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP) argued that the soldier, referred to as “A.” in court documents, had violated the U.K.’s Foreign Enlistment Act of 1870.
A British judge threw the ICJP out of court. In an April 8 ruling, he berated the lawfare-waging NGO for “failure to present the full picture” and “failure of candor.”
“This application is legally flawed, evidentially deficient and procedurally defective. It constitutes an abuse of the process of this court, driven by an improper motive and facilitated by serious breaches of the duty of candor,” he said.
The soldier filed a complaint with the Israel Bar Association against an Israeli attorney who was one of those who had submitted a statement on behalf of the prosecution.
That attorney, Michel Pomeranz, was notified of the complaint this week.
“Pomeranz took an active part in this process by submitting an expert opinion,” soldier A. said in the complaint, which was filed with the Israel Bar National Ethics Committee on Aug. 17.
Basing her expertise on her status as a member of the Israeli bar, she attempted to “lay a legal foundation” to show that his IDF service was an offense under British law, according to the complaint.
“Attorney Pomeranz acted knowingly to bring about my arrest, my prosecution, and even my imprisonment for serving in the IDF, and in particular for reporting for service the day after the Oct. 7 massacre, during the country’s most difficult time,” A. said.
Pomeranz’s opinion, he went on, was provided with the explicit knowledge that it would serve in legal proceedings against other soldiers. (In her Oct. 18, 2025, statement to the court, Pomeranz acknowledged, “The ICJP intends to initiate a private prosecution for at least nine named British citizens who are known to have traveled to Israel to participate in military activities on behalf of Israel since 7 October 2023.”)
The soldier accused Pomeranz of violating at least two sections of the Israel Bar Association Law, one of which prohibits exploiting bar membership as cover to harm national security in time of war.
A. demanded that the ethics committee take disciplinary measures against Pomeranz, either banning her permanently from practicing law in Israel or suspending her for an extended period.
Shurat HaDin—Israel Law Center, an NGO which fights lawfare and BDS globally, helped A. file the complaint after he reached out for assistance. If successful, the complaint would be precedent-setting, Shurat HaDin founder Nitsana Darshan-Leitner told JNS. She was not aware of another case where a lawyer was suspended for disloyalty to the state.
Pomeranz said she would vigorously defend herself against the complaint, which “has no factual or legal basis.” She said she would file her response with the Israel Bar Association in the coming weeks.
“I did not write a legal opinion for the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians and I did not represent the organization. I was asked by a British law firm to prepare an expert opinion on Israeli law on specific legal questions, and I did so,” she told JNS.
“I was asked to write an opinion on whether an Israeli citizen who holds British citizenship is obligated to report for reserve duty. I wrote an opinion on the subject according to Israeli law,” she said. She concluded that if the individual is in Israel, the answer is the soldier must report to duty. If abroad, the answer is less clear.
“In other words, it is doubtful whether the opinion helped the lawsuit at all. But a legal opinion describes the law, not the client’s will,” she said.
Persecuting lawyers through the bar association is “reminiscent of dark regimes,” she told JNS. “The role of lawyers is to present the legal situation, even before foreign courts, and I have no intention of allowing organizations like ‘Shurat HaDin’ ... to intimidate me because of my work.”
Added Pomeranz: “It would be better if the State of Israel itself examined the many well-founded suspicions of war crimes committed by IDF soldiers and brought to justice those who committed these terrible crimes, and thus there would be no need for organizations abroad and other countries to engage in this.”
In her statement to the court, Pomeranz said she had represented conscientious objectors who refused to enlist in the Israel Defense Forces and Palestinian victims of alleged IDF war crimes and crimes against humanity.
Darshan-Leitner called Pomeranz’s response “disingenuous.” She was “completely aware” of the purpose her expert opinion served; “to be used to support the ICJP’s attempt to bring criminal charges against IDF reservists.
“Her own expert report expressly describes ICJP’s intended prosecution,” said Darshan-Leitner, who noted that the organization “had collected the names of British citizens who had served in the IDF and intended to initiate private prosecutions against at least nine of them. She plainly knew what malicious purpose her expert opinion was intended to serve.
“The claim that a British law firm commissioned it does not answer the claims about her knowing involvement in that initiative,” Darshan-Leitner said. “Her reference to alleged war crimes is a diversion. This case did not allege that the reservist had committed a war crime or any misconduct during his service. It sought to criminalize his very act of reporting for reserve duty.”
Pomeranz’s participation has caused waves in Israeli media. Channel 12’s Amit Segal denounced her on Tuesday on social media. “She used her Israeli law license, and her supposed expertise in Israeli law, to supply legal ammunition to a dangerous, extremist anti-Israel organization,” he posted to X.
“Her actions are more than simply unethical. Helping to prosecute the people who came from thousands of miles away to protect you and your family in an hour of need is not only a betrayal of the country and the military, but a desecration of that sacred unity that followed Oct. 7,” he wrote.
Darshan-Leitner told JNS that the soldier’s complaint against Pomeranz rests on a solid foundation and her actions warrant disciplinary action.
“It brings before the ethics committee a legitimate and important question: Can a member of the Israeli bar use her credentials as such to base her expertise in a case which seeks to hunt down Israeli soldiers reporting for duty to save their country in its darkest hour?”
Quoting Yuval Elbashan, an Israeli legal scholar, Darshan-Leitner said, “While this soldier wore his military uniform and risked his life to save lives, Ms. Pomeranz wore her court robe to pursue him.”
