"Bahrain has appointed a Jewish woman as an ambassador, believed to be the Arab world's first Jewish envoy.
The selection of Houda Nonoo was made by decree on Wednesday and reported by local media in the Gulf Arab kingdom on Friday.
The decree, published by the official Bahraini News Agency, did not state which nation Nonoo would be appointed to but media reports have said that the US is her likely destination.
Nonoo, 43, said she would undertake the role "first of all as a Bahraini" and that she was not chosen because of her religion.
Bahraini media had speculated over Nonoo's selection for the past few months.
Nonoo, a businesswoman and mother of two children, has served as a legislator in Bahrain's all-appointed 40-member Shura Council for three years.
Nonoo lives in both Bahrain and London and is the first Jewish woman to head a local rights organisation, the Bahrain Human Rights Watch.
She is Bahrain's third woman ambassador – the first being appointed to France in 2000 and the second to China.
Bahrain is a predominately Shia Muslim state but has Sunni rulers who are allied to the US.
About 40 Jews live in Bahrain, where there is one synagogue.
The authorities in Bahrain are currently planning to grant full citizenship rights to Jewish returnees, according to local reports."
Fascinating and surprising, but before anyone thinks that maybe this could be the start of something good in Bahrain with regard to recognising the state of Israel do remember that it was only last year that Bahrain stripped Mushir Salem Jawher (the former Kenyan runner) for competing in Israel (he won the Tiberias Marathon). At the time Bahrain's Athletic Union said in a statement that it had received the news that a Bahraini national competed in Israel with "shock and regret." "The union deeply regrets what the athlete has done," the statement said. A committee of sport and government authorities decided to strike Jawher's name off the sport union records and strip him of his Bahraini nationality, the statement said. It said Jawher had entered Israel with his Kenyan passport and added that the runner's Bahraini citizenship was revoked because he had "violated the laws of Bahrain."
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