I'm losing faith in the Palestinians...

[Opus1]

Seriously. In the past, whenever the Palestinians did something hideous, violent, or just plain slimy, you could always count on them to come up with some sort of brilliant P.R. to explain it. You know, "We strongly condemn this violence, but you have to realize the oppression and violence on the part of the Israelis that lead to it. No no no...We're not excusing suicide bombings, we're explaining them."

But they seem to have really jumped the shark lately. Israel catches a fake Palestinian funeral. I expected the standard Palestinian line: "We strongly condemn this dishonesty, but you have to realize the oppression and dishonesty on the part of the Israelis that blah blah blah..." With the discovery of documents linking Arafat to terrorism (which the Palestinians of course maintain are forgeries), they even had the perfect excuse.

Instead, we get a few days worth of silence. Then [url="http://palestinechronicle.com/article.php?%20story=20020506025404487"this[/url]. According to the article (from a completely unbiased, neutral source, I might add), this was meant to be an independent film of a funeral, not an actual staged funeral. Uh huh. Sure.

I'm reminded of the scene on The Simpsons where Bart catches Skinner and Krabappel kissing. Later, they try to deny what happened by explaining that sometimes a little boy's imagination runs away from him, etc. Bart stops Skinner and says, "Please. You could have at least said that you were giving her CPR or rehearsing for a play."

Well, I guess the Palestinians have stooped to the "rehearsing for a play" level of denial. I've always enjoyed Palestinian propaganda for its sheer ballsiness and absurdity, but it looks like the writers are running out of ideas. Oh well. It's been going on for 35 years, and even with new writers, it's tough to keep coming up with new ideas. I'll keep following this conflict, just because I've been doing it for so long that I can't quit now, but my heart isn't really in it anymore.

[Opus1]

About a half second after I hit submit, I thought to myself. Hmm, maybe I should have previewed to make sure my link worked. Let's try again:

http://palestinechronicle.com/articl...20506025404487

[matt_mcl]

What would be the point? Nobody believes them anyway. Arafat could weep and storm and tear his hair and offer his first-born son to Ariel Sharon as a bloodprice and still the press releases would come out dismissing his condemnation.

[matt_mcl]

What would be the point? Nobody believes them anyway. Arafat could weep and storm and tear his hair and offer his first-born son to Ariel Sharon as a bloodprice and still the press releases would come out dismissing his condemnation.

[Alereon]

I also ask "What's the point?", but for different reasons. They can condemn it all they want, but the end result is that it won't stop. Attacks on civilians are deplorable, but are to be expected in a case such as this. The Palestinians can say sorry as much as they want, and the Israelis can shoot as many people as they want, but the neither will help the situation in any way.

[Lemur866]

What do you mean, attacks on civilians are to be expected? I can think of dozens of wars in the last 50 years that didn't result in people strapping bombs to themselves and blowing up pizza parlors and holiday gatherings.

These suicide bombings are NOT the typical result of a frustrated national independence movement. How many other national independence movements have used suicide bombings? None. The suicide bombing campaign has a clear message: "It is more important that YOU die than that WE live."