THE SAMARITANS are not immune to the current troubles on the West Bank:

Palestinian Renounces Ties to Community

By ALI DARAGHMEH
Associated Press Writer

July 5, 2004, 6:23 AM EDT

NABLUS, West Bank -- He grew up in a tiny tribe tracing its roots back to the Bible, but when Nader Sadakah decided to take up arms against Israeli soldiers, he was expelled by his community.

The Samaritans, just 660 strong, have been caught between warring Israelis and Palestinians, not picking sides during nearly four years of Mideast fighting. Sadakah's choice undermined their survival strategy.

[...]

Sadakah, 27, spoke about his choice at a coffee shop in Nablus' old city, a dark warren of twisting alleys that is frequently raided by Israeli forces.

Sporting a neatly trimmed short beard, Sadakah glanced around nervously as he spoke and sipped a cup of coffee. A shiny, automatic pistol protruded from his belt.

Sadakah said that since the early 1990s, he has been a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a tiny PLO faction which once had a Marxist bent. Sadakah said he has been on Israel's wanted list for the past three and a half years, a claim the Israeli military would not confirm.

[...]

But it has also apparently caused problems for the Samaritans.

Hosni Wasif, a Samaritan high priest in Nablus, said Israeli authorities had begun taking a hard line against Samaritans because of Sadakah's activities, subjecting them to new scrutiny at military checkpoints.

"By joining a left-wing faction he left our religion," Wasif said. "The entire sect sees him as an apostate."

[...]

The title of the article strikes me as odd. It would make sense to say "Samaritan Renounces Ties to Community," but why "Palestinian?" Sadakah has identified himself now with the Palestinian cause, but before that he was a Samaritan and only "Palestinian" in the sense that he lived in the region known historically as "Palestine," that is, roughly the region corresponding biblical Israel. By that definition all Israelis are "Palestinians" as well. I'm not sure whether the muddled terminology comes because the reporter thinks his audience is too ignorant to know what "Samaritan" means or whether it's an effort to co-opt the Samaritans, obviously quite against their will, into the Palestinian political identity. Both maybe.