| "Oh, hold me, Fatimah! I'm so alarmed!" |
Palestinians voiced fears that the U.S. veto of a U.N. resolution demanding that Israel not harm or expel Yasser Arafat could be seen by Israeli leaders as a license to kill him. The Security Council vote on Tuesday followed Israel's dismissal of a cease-fire call by the Palestinian president's national security adviser, Jibril Rajoub.
| "Piss off, Jibril. Been there, done that, got the dead guys to prove it..." |
Israel said that instead of pursuing a truce, Arafat's Palestinian Authority should hunt down militants as mandated by a U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map.
| "But... What's peace in the Middle East got to do with us Paleos? It's up to them Jews and the Merkins to make it happen!" |
"It's a black day for the United Nations and for international law," chief Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat told Reuters after the vote. "I hope that Israel will not interpret the resolution as a license to kill President Arafat."
| "... or any of his spokesmen..." |
After back-to-back suicide bombings killed 15 Israelis last week, Israel touched off an international outcry by announcing a decision "to remove" Arafat, without saying how or when.
| Notice that booming a busload of innocents didn't set off an international outcry? Not that it was a great success for the Paleos. The best they could get this time was stunned silence from the intergnats. |
In vetoing the resolution, which demanded Israel "desist from any act of deportation and cease any threat" to Arafat's safety, the United States said the text failed to name Palestinian groups blamed for suicide attacks. |