You make the (obvious) call.
Palestinian Authority ‘won’t disarm militants’
The Palestinian Authority will not disarm militants until Israel ends its occupation of the West Bank and Gaza as stated in a U.S.-backed peace plan, Foreign Minister Nasser al-Kidwa said on Monday.
“Under international law, the Palestinian people have the right to resist this occupation and defend themselves,” Kidwa, the former Palestinian envoy to the United Nations, told Reuters in an interview.
“When occupation ends, it becomes a different matter. It would have to come to a national position to start disarming everybody, everybody but the security apparatus,” he said, referring to Palestinian Authority security forces.
A spokesman for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who declared a ceasefire with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in February, could not be reached for comment on whether the Palestinian leader agreed with Kidwa’s remarks.
When lawlessness gets the upper hand
At long last A. managed to bring his nephews from Jenin to Ramallah for one weekend. He had hoped to restore to them, if only for two days, the taste of their childhood that was buried under the Israeli bulldozers, tanks and missiles. On Friday he took them to the play center in Ramallah. They had not yet begun to enjoy themselves when an argument erupted between a mother and the owner of the place. She called in a relative, a member of one of the security organizations. He came and contributed his part to the argument – shots fired into the air from his pistol, in the closed space full of children.
The children and the parents huddled in alarm and did not calm down until armed police showed up. Instead of stopping the shooting, they too opened fire.
On that same street, about a kilometer northward, passersby found themselves in the midst of exchanges of gunfire between armed men wearing civilian clothes. “Jews,” said 5-year-old T. to his mother as they hid behind the shelves of the grocery store. “No, they’re ours, safeguarding our security,” she replied with cynicism beyond his ken.
Feel free to read them both and decide.