Exiled Libyan Jew Eying Post-Gadhafi Future
The leader of the Libyan-Jewish community in Britain said that he has been invited to run for political office in the post- Muammar Gadhafi era.
Raphael Luzon told the Jerusalem Post Tuesday, a day after the fall of the Libyan capital Tripoli to rebel forces, that opposition leader Mustafa Abdul Jalil has invited him to return to Libya and run in free elections.
Jalil is a former Libyan justice minister and now chairman of the rebel council in Benghazi.
Luzon told the newspaper that he was invited to take part in the elections “because they would like it to be open to all people including women and Jews.”
Luzon, whose family fled Libya in 1967, met Gadhafi twice in recent years.
He said he would await further developments in the country before making a decision.
Luzon told the Jerusalem Post that reconstruction of the war-torn country and the restitution of Jewish assets confiscated by the Libyan regime would top his political agenda.
Fighting continued in the Libyan capital on Tuesday, centered on Gadhafi’s fortified compound.
A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.
We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.
If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
