Vox cani

Abbu Ammar, Yasser Arafat, that evil guy with whom we can't deal, or the hero of
the Palestinian cause, is
dead. I'm almost optimistic about Palestine now; it will be hard for Israel
and the US to reject a new guy, the way they rejected him, unless he (Suha? I
think not) is universally acknowledged as a terrorist. The drawn-out death
should have given the contenders sufficient time to get together a strategy that
will produce someone acceptable. If they didn't then the Palestinians really are
let down by their leaders; much as it is nasty to Palestinian democracy for
Israeli and American acceptance of their choice as a negotiating partner to be
conditional, rather than automatic. Hopefully international sympathy over Arafat
will ameliorate the negotiating position. They've been screwed for a long time,
and accepting that they have to act within bounds in leadership choice is
perhaps humiliating, but in the long run, nothing else is remotely sensible.