Jewish settler seeks to become Palestinian

[Scurrilous]

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/SAU326488.htm

<snip>

"Jewish settler Avi Farhan, determined not to give up his home overlooking the sea when Israel quits the occupied Gaza Strip, is looking into becoming a Palestinian.

"I have met with Palestinians. I am willing to be a test case for peace and take up Palestinian citizenship," Farhan told Reuters. "It will hurt me to give up my Israeli citizenship, but I want to remain here."

One Palestinian official suggested he might be allowed to stay in overcrowded Gaza -- home to 1.4 million Palestinians -- as long as he obeyed Palestinian laws. Actual citizenship could only be decided on an individual basis and any applicant would have to meet the same conditions as anyone else."

<snip>

"Farhan, a Libyan-born Jew who left Tripoli for Israel at the age of three in the wake of the 1948 war at Israel's creation, said seven families were willing to stay in the mostly secular Gaza settlement of Elei Sinai after Israeli troops leave.

[geek tragedy]

1. That could get interesting. Though I think he's signing his own

death certificate.

[Behind the Aegis]

2. I wonder.

You may be right. I wonder if he will be allowed to practice Judaism or if that will be verboten.

[geek tragedy]

3. I'm sure the authorities will let him practice. But, I don't think the

local Hamas chapter is going to want to have Jews living in the neighborhood.

[Coastie for Truth]

4. But, as a foolish, cockeyed optimist

--- can we dream about the land of Al-Andalus/Andalusia in the world described by Maria Menocal in "The Ornament of the World: How Muslims, Jews and Christians Created a Culture of Tolerance in Medieval Spain" (the world of Rambam and Hasdai ibn Shaprut, when the Muslim world was the center of mathematics, astronomy, metallurgy, medicine, and pharmacy).

Maybe it's a foolish dream for this generation (but one of my son's house mates in grad school was a Persian Shiia -- and they still party together almost a decade later)