Israel Matzav

'Palestinian' space.com

Some of you may have already heard the story about the 16-year old from Michigan who flew here to meet in person a 20-year old 'Palestinian' from Jericho whom she met on MySpace.com. Yesterday, al-AP spoke with the 'Palestinian's' mother and it seems that they want the girl back to sign a 'marriage contract.'

Sana Jinzawi says she was waiting at the airport in Tel Aviv to pick up Katherine Lester, who met her 20-year-old son Abdullah on the popular MySpace.com Web site.

Lester had boarded a flight to Israel last week after slipping out of her mother's house in Gilford, Mich. But U.S. authorities intercepted her at a stopover in Amman, Jordan, on Friday, seized her passport and put her on a flight home.

The wedding is off — at least for now.

Sana Jinzawi said by telephone from her West Bank home in Jericho yesterday that her son was heartbroken and insisted the two are in love.

"She was going to sign a marriage contract as soon as she got here," the mother said, adding she told Lester to "bring a pink dress for the engagement party and a white dress for the wedding."

"She wanted to convert to Islam and wear the head covering and live with us and adopt our culture," Sana Jinzawi said. [Someone had better make sure that she knows that if she converts to Islam, they will never let her go, and if she escapes from her husband it will be without any children. It's not America. CiJ]

Renee Wood, a lawyer for Lester's mother, Shawn, said she had not heard of a marriage contract, but "we did hear that she was to marry him." Telephone messages seeking comment from Lester's parents were not immediately returned.

...

Sana Jinzawi said five other Jericho residents had brought American girls to Jericho in recent years and that all the couples now live in the U.S.

Authorities are trying to determine if any laws were broken in the Lester case. The age of sexual consent in Michigan is 16, and Katherine Lester turns 17 on June 21.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:40 PM