| I think the Paleo henchmen are going to try and get Israel to treat them like they were a rational country, rational being defined by Arab standards, of course. I think Israel's going to try and do just that, in the hope it'll stick. And I think Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the al-Aqsa Martyrs are going to try their damnedest to make sure that doesn't happen. On the upside, since Hamas and Islamic Jihad want to muscle in to grab some of the power (and graft) from themselves, there's lotsa potential for shootouts between them. |
Palestinian officials are urging Israel to curb military operations as they begin to register candidates to run in an election to replace Yasser Arafat as Palestinian Authority president. Election officials said on Saturday that the January 9 presidential ballot may be delayed unless Israel facilitates free and fair elections by redeploying troops away from Palestinian towns and villages in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and halting military operations. "We have been repeatedly demanding that Israel should withdraw its forces from Palestinian areas so that our teams can do their job without obstacles," Ammar Dweik, the head of the Palestinian central elections commission, told Reuters. "Any assassination, incursion or curfews will definitely affect the election timetable," he said.
| "So it'll be all their fault if we don't do it." |
Israel has promised to do "everything that is needed" for democratic Palestinian elections, including probably allowing Palestinians from East Jerusalem to participate in the ballot. The election is to take place 60 days after Arafat died of an undisclosed illness at a French hospital on November 11. |