Traveshamockery Democracy Update.

From Best of the Web Today:

Trouble in Paradise
A month after Hamas took over the government of the Palestinian Authority, "a growing number of Palestinians . . . believe they are now closer than ever to civil war and bankruptcy," reports the Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh:

Boycotted by the international community, [Prime Minister Ismail] Haniyeh's cabinet is still struggling to raise funds to pay salaries to more than 140,000 PA civil servants. They have not been paid for March and many of them say they can't even afford to travel to work.

Hamas has thus far failed to raise enough funds in the Arab and Islamic world. True, its leaders have been promised tens of millions of dollars by Iran, Libya and a few Arab countries, but the money has still not been transferred to Ramallah and the Gaza Strip. A drive by Hamas to collect donations from Arabs
and Muslims has also failed because of the failure of Arab banks to cooperate. . . .

In addition to the financial crisis, the Hamas cabinet is also facing a political and diplomatic boycott by most of the world. Foreign Minister Mahmoud Zahar, who has just wrapped up a tour of a number of Arab countries, including Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Libya, is about to return home with a suitcase full of promises and little cash.

This after reportedly having $450,000 in cash stolen from his suitcase in Kuwait. Toameh also reports that "Palestinian Authority officials here expressed deep concern over the weekend about reports that al-Qaida was planning to assassinate top PA leaders":

The latest measures were taken after a hitherto unknown group calling itself al-Tawhid and Jihad [Unification and Holy War] distributed leaflets in the Gaza Strip threatening to kill a number of senior officials belonging to [Mahmoud] Abbas's Fatah party.

This is the first time that the group, which is believed to be headed by Jordanian arch-terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi, has issued a leaflet in Gaza, indicating that al-Qaida elements had begun operating in the area. . .
.

Muwafak Matar, a senior Fatah activist in the Gaza Strip, strongly condemned the threat as an attempt to spark civil war in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. "Why are the Zarqawis of Palestine focusing their efforts on issuing threats to kill Palestinians?" he asked. "Why now and what's their goal?" He
added: "Doesn't the Palestinian citizen have the right to shout, 'Enough is enough' We have reached the red line of tensions and restraint."

Indeed. Imagine if the Palestinian Arabs had shouted that back in 1948, when the U.N. offered them a chance to have their own country.

Heehee!