A.P. FINDS A TERRORIST

WHO SAYS A.P. NEVER USES THE WORD "TERROR?" PREVIOUSLY, A.P. HAS ARGUED THAT ONE MAN'S TERRORIST IS ANOTHER FREEDOM-FIGHTER. IT HAS REFERRED TO "INSURGENTS" AND "MILITANTS" BUT NOT "TERRORISTS" WHEN DESCRIBING ARAB VIOLENCE AGAINST ISRAELIS. FINALLY THEY HAVE FOUND A "TERRORIST".... AN ISRAELI JEWISH CONVERT. THEN AGAIN, BY THE TIME HE DECIDED TO BECOME A TERRORIST, HE HAD CONVERTED BACK TO THE RELIGION OF PEACE.

Israeli Jew charged in terror plan (A.P.)
JERUSALEM - Asaf Ben-David, an Israeli Jew, is facing charges of conspiring to carry out a terror attack with a wanted Palestinian militant — his brother.

The exceptional story of Ben-David, a 38-year-old father of four, begins in Tubas, a village in the West Bank, where he was born a Palestinian Muslim named Hussam Sawafta. In the early 1990s, he found work as a laborer in Israel, where he converted to Judaism, lived as an Orthodox Jew, married an Israeli woman and raised a family.

For years, Ben-David led a seemingly uneventful life and had little contact with his Palestinian relatives. Then last month, the Israeli army killed his brother, Salah Sawafta, an Islamic Jihad militant, in a West Bank gunbattle. Last week, Ben-David was indicted on charges of helping his brother plan a deadly attack against Israelis.

According to the charge sheet, Ben-David surreptitiously had contact with his brother for months and tried to help him obtain a large amount of nitric acid, used to prepare bombs.

"In the framework of his contacts with Salah, the accused conspired with Salah to assist the Islamic Jihad in its war against Israel," reads the indictment filed in Haifa District Court. Islamic Jihad has killed dozens of Israelis in suicide bombings.

On Sunday, the Sawafta family's large home in Tubas was adorned with a black Islamic Jihad flag. In the living room was a picture of Salah Sawafta, who died in a gunfight with Israeli troops on Dec. 20.

Mahmoud Sawafta, a cousin, said Ben-David left Tubas to work in Israel 15 years ago, and didn't return.

"He saw a different life, got married, and converted to Judaism," Mahmoud Sawafta said. Ben-David worked in restaurants and construction, and had only sporadic contact with his West Bank family, his cousin said.

Amit Rosines, a court-appointed lawyer, said Ben-David told him he was scorned as a traitor on the few occasions he went back to the village. "People in the village shouted at him that he raised Jewish soldiers," Rosines said.

Ben-David re-entered the life of the Sawafta family in earnest when his brother was killed, according to their father, Hafez Sawafta. He said he called his Jewish son the day his militant son was killed, and that Ben-David came to Tubas and stayed to mourn for three days.

When he returned to Israel, Ben-David decided to renounce Judaism and return to Islam, his father said. "He called me and said he had officially become Muslim again in a ceremony at a mosque, and said he wanted to give up his Israeli citizenship," Hafez Sawafta told The Associated Press.