[Illbay]

Are you sure that Arabs get carte blanche citizenship in Israel? My friend, who is a Syrian from the Golan Heights, was not allowed to have Israeli citizenship, even though he was only three years old when Israel occupied the Golan.

He applied several times but was told "no" each time. Finally, he came to the U.S. and is now a citizen. He said he was tired of having no "home".

He is a Christian, BTW.

[El Sordo]

No, I am not saying that.

What I mean to say is that it is not unusual to find Israeli citizens who are of Palistinian or other Arabic heritage.

Israeli treatment of the Palistinians has been saintly compared to the treatment they have received many Arabic couuntries. It is my understanding that Israel has, in the past, allowed citizenship to Palestinians. How many and under what terms I cannot say.

I cannot back this up, but I seem to recall having read somewhere once that there are more Palestinians with Israeli citizenship than Jordanian citizenship, Saudi Arabian citizenship or a host of other Arab countries that use the Palestinians to fight a proxy war for them.

[l33t]

The Arab inhabitants of the Golans are the local Druze who number about 20,000. Israel offered citizenship to them on December 14, 1981 when it formally annexed the Golans. However, based on the "feedback" from Damascus this Druze community refused Israeli offer.