Moment of unintended amusement on the BBC. The BBC World Service had Saeb Erekat on, and as usual, were letting him whine on and on for minutes with nary an interruption. He was carrying on with his usual line, it's all Israel's fault, they have to accede to every Pal demand right now or else it will be too late, I'm against corruption (highly amusing), I'm against terrorism (ditto), I'm a moderate, etc. etc. The usual. Then a new variant crept in. The BBC announcer decided to be just slightly skeptical, and asked, if you are really against the attacks, what about Fatah and Hamas, why don't you move to stop them? The answer Erekat gave was, we can't because Israel destroyed our police stations on 2002. This was so lame that the BBC announcer asked, But wasn't the intifada, the attacks, a deliberate policy of Yasser Arafat?
Could have knocked me down with a feather. That was certainly not an thought that had ever crossed the lips of a BBC reporter during the intifada, when Pal violence happened of itself, like earthquakes, and Arafat's protests were taken at face value. Erekat himself seemed a little taken aback by the unexpected question, but he quickly recovered and blamed Israel again. |
