Y*******n
发帖数: 2296 | 1 An unlikely refuge for Muammar Qaddafi
Come and be an Israeli!
The colonel has sympathisers in an unexpected place
IF HE needs a refuge, Colonel Muammar Qaddafi might consider the Israeli
town of Netanya. An Israeli family of Libyan origin has recently surfaced
saying they are the colonel’s relatives and that he should think of making
aliyah (the Jewish voyage of return) and claim Israeli citizenship as any
Jew may do under Israeli law. Gita Boaron told Israeli television she shares
a great-grandmother with the colonel. “She fled her Jewish husband for a
Muslim sheikh,” she says. “Her daughter was the colonel’s mother, making
him Jewish under rabbinic law.”
Some jokers suggest that Mrs Boaron’s family want a share of the gold the
colonel is said to be carrying. But others say there may be a more solid
claim. “Jews from Tripoli remember he attended a Jewish wedding in the
1960s, long before he became leader,” says Pedazur Benattia, founder of Or
Shalom, a centre that promotes Libyan-Jewish culture in Israel.
In Netanya, a resort north of Tel Aviv, where many of the 100,000-odd
Israeli Jews of Libyan origin have settled, a square has been called Qaddafi
Plaza in anticipation of his arrival. “Whatever he’s done, Israel’s his
home,” says Rachel, a widow sipping her macchiato, Libya’s beverage of
choice, and nibbling abambara, a Libyan-Jewish pastry in one of the square’
s Libyan-owned cafés. “After all, he’s a Jew.” With his curls, she says,
he would fit into many a Libyan synagogue.
The colonel’s popularity is odd since he chased non-Muslims, Italian
Catholics and Jews alike out of Libya and took their property. But Israel’s
Libyan Jews say he has sought to atone for his youthful Arab radicalism. In
the New York Times in 2009 the Great Leader noted that “Jews and Muslims
are cousins descended from Abraham. The Jewish people,” he added
understandingly, “want and deserve their homeland.”
Other family members are said to have kept up the tradition. Israeli
tabloids make much of reports that Saif al-Islam, the colonel’s son and oft
-presumed heir, used to date Orly Weinermann, a sometime scantily clad
Israeli soap-opera actress. Quite a few of the colonel’s Libyan foes
believe such gossip. Graffiti with Stars of David superimposed on swastikas
have spattered the walls of Benghazi, the rebels’ eastern base. “Qaddafi
Mossad agent,” reads one of the banners.
http://www.economist.com/node/21528675 | x********v
发帖数: 2535 | |
|
