The Palestinian people are headed for a civil war. One of my good friends sent out the warning to bloggers last week that we should not celebrate Yasser Arafat's passing. Gee, and I already had the party hat on!

Let me just say that it is good diplomacy for the President to pretend that he cares about Arafat's passing. It is also a good idea for the State Department to pretend that this represents a historic turning point for Middle East peace. Thank goodness, though, that I am neither an Administration official or an employee of the State Department. I am a blogger--an amateur pundit. I practice speaking truth to power something or other.

I'm not going to tow the party line. Yasser Arafat? Good riddance. Middle East Peace? Pipe dream. The Arabs in the occupied territories are headed for a civil war. Here is more evidence from CTV:

On Sunday evening, militants firing assault rifles burst into a mourning tent for deceased Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, killing two security guards and wounding six others.

Abbas had just entered the tent, along with 10,000 others, including about 3,000 armed men, most of them police officers. He stood with Gaza strongman Mohammed Dahlan and shook hands with mourners.

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia insists the shooting was not an attempt to kill Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen.

"What's happened, we're sorry for what's happened, but anyhow it is not targeting Abu Mazen personally," Qureia said....

For his part, Abbas also denies that he was targeted, saying a "random shooting" broke out. "But not in my direction." He also denied reports that the gunmen shouted any slogans against him.

The Associated Press reported that the gunmen barged into the tent shouting, "Abbas and Dahlan are agents for the Americans!''

Posted by: Rusty at 08:16 AM | Comments (3) | Add Comment
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