Gloom and doom–no more hefty bonuses for suicide bombings. From Yahoo News [“Palestinians Mark ‘Black Day’ of Saddam Capture“]:
Disbelief and gloom seized many Palestinians Sunday at news of Saddam Hussein’s capture as Israel fired off a telegram of congratulations to Washington….”It’s a black day in history,” said Sadiq Husam, 33, a taxi driver in Ramallah, West Bank seat of the Palestinian Authority….Saddam paid over $35 million to the kin of Palestinian suicide bombers, militants and bystanders who died in an uprising that began in 2000.
Arafat himself had opposed the 1991 Gulf War that ousted Saddam’s forces from Kuwait. Palestinians cheered when Iraqi Scud missiles crashed into Israeli cities.
But not to worry, there are always fellow terrorist supporters–opps, I mean “freedom fighters”–in other Arab countries, Old Europe, and that beacon for world dictatorship–the U.N. The article also quotes one of the wonders of the Palestinian “education” system (which duplicates that of a few American, Cuban, and European universities):
“The war will start now in Iraq said 16-year-old Yusef Khalil in Gaza. “Saddam helped our people and we will not forget him.”
As another example of non-objective reporting here is what an ABC News Reporter had to say on Saddam’s support of “Palestinians killed in the conflict”, i.e., suicide bombers:
Until the outbreak of the war against Iraq, the strongman sent millions of dollars to Palestinians killed in the conflict with Israel.
Killed by whom? Themselves. Comments Mark Steyn in the Irish Times (December 15, 2003):
In the honour/shame culture of the Arab world, it will be much harder now to pass [Saddam] off as the mighty warrior. He had a pistol, but chose not to use it on himself. The Palestinians may be jumping up and down in the street insisting he’s still a great man, but in the end the sugar daddy who put up 25,000 bucks for the family of each suicide bomber had no desire to experience the glory of martyrdom himself: he’s eager for you to strap your teenage daughter into the Semtex belt, but, like Osama and Yasser and the rest of the gang, he’s disinclined to lead by example. For Middle East dictators who’ve enjoyed a wholly undeserved political stability for a quarter-century, the humiliation of Saddam Hussein is a cautionary tale.