Not Ready for Their Close-Up

AP has an interesting account of a ceremony in the West Bank warren of Jenin, where international organizations re-built homes for people who lost theirs when the Israeli army tore the place up generally in 2002.

The Red Crescent Society of the United Arab Emirates put up $27 million to build 435 houses. Britain provided project management, and Swiss and Swedish sappers cleared the ground of unexploded shells and bombs.

So guess who gets the attention, and takes center stage when it's time to acknowledge who did this good work?

JENIN REFUGEE CAMP, West Bank - Dozens of gun-toting Palestinian militants on Thursday marched into a U.N. ceremony to dedicate new homes for families whose houses were destroyed by the Israeli military - a sign of the authority gunmen still hold in this West Bank town.

You got it: the very people who brought down the wrath of the IDF and its bulldozers on Jenin in the first place. The thuggery who took the people's homes for their foxholes.

The sudden appearance of Zakaria Zubeidi, the 29-year-old militant leader, and at least 20 of his armed men embarrassed the head of the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, the body that administers Palestinian refugee camps.

Weapons are banned in the camps, but during four years of violence, armed gangs have taken control, building their reputations through deadly attacks on Israelis. The unarmed Palestinian police have been shunted aside.

Zubeidi, West Bank head of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a violent group linked to the ruling Fatah party, strode to the gate of the compound housing U.N. agency offices, passing signs on a fence showing the silhouette of a gun with a red line through it.

After a brief argument with a guard, he checked in his M-16 assault rifle with telescopic sight and walked in - a pistol clearly visible on his hip.

"Of course I don't condone it, but it's a fact of life," UNRWA head Peter Hansen told The Associated Press, referring to the violation of the no-arms rule. "Look around the camp. We can't stop it - we don't have guns."

[emphasis added]

When the head of the UAE Red Crescent arrived, "He appeared taken aback as he stepped out of his car into a crowd of pushing, shouting Palestinians." Zubeidi and his men shoved aside uniformed, but unarmed, Palestinian police and formed a self-appointed escort for the UAE officials, surrounding them and forcing their way through the crowd and into the hall where the ceremonies were held.

Inside, Zubeidi jumped on stage, grabbed the microphone and politely but firmly told the jostling crowd to sit down and pay attention. His gun was slung across his back and he was flanked by two other men, weapons held high.

His authority unchallenged, the crowd responded immediately, while throughout the hall more of his followers, waving an assortment of automatic weapons, acted as ushers and doorkeepers.

The pictures tell quite a story, too.

I'll agree with my anti-Iraq war friends on one thing: Not every place in the Middle East is ready to be a functioning nation.