Palestinian Authority election: a multiple choice test

The Palestinian Authority election will be a multiple test. First there is the logistical problem of running the election. That could turn out to be the least of President Mahmoud Abbas's problems.

According to Israel National News:

The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a veteran component of the PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), will be running in January’s Palestinian Authority election under the banner, “Destroy the Zionist Enterprise.”

At the head of the PFLP’s list for the PA parliament is Ahmed Sa’adat, the organization’s chairman, who ordered the assassination of Israeli minister Rehavam Ze’evi in October 2003. Another prominent figure on the list is Mohammed Alrimawi, who led the hit men who shot Ze’evi.

Sa’adat and Alrimawi are supposed to be serving time in a Jericho prison for that assassination. The PA agreed to imprison the two men under pressure from the United States and Great Britain.

[Hat-tip to discarded lies]

The Palestinian Authority's parliamentary elections will no doubt influence the Israeli elections two months later. Widespread support for PFLP candidates will do nothing to create a climate of trust with Israeli voters. This is exactly the sort of banana-skin that Ariel Sharon's new party could do with avoiding.

N.B. The Palestinian Authority's website still doesn't carry any news about the legislative elections (which I find worrying). There is however a communiqué commending Javier Solano's endorsement of:

the Palestinian people's right to end Israeli military occupation "peacefully".