Memo to PA: how not to win friends and influence people

There is an article online at the Jerusalem Post wherein PA officials are “decrying the growing anarchy and chaos” in the West Bank and Gaza. I don’t mean to make light of the rapidly deteriorating security situation but I find the pathology of PA officials who blame everyone except themselves for creating and fuelling the Rule by Thugery more than a little ironic; especially when their own little interoffice rivalries have a tendency to get more than a trifle out of hand:

In Ramallah, a PA General Intelligence officer was shot and killed during an armed clash between rival security forces Sunday night. The victim was identified as Fadi Jabareen, 23. Eyewitnesses said the clash erupted at Manarah Square in the center of the city. They said Jabareen was shot in the stomach by another security officer and died of his wounds in the hospital.

Palestinian policemen who rushed to the scene arrested one suspect. The victim's friends and relatives surrounded the police vehicle in which the suspect was sitting, fired several shots in the air and beat the suspect. They were driven away by the policemen, who also fired into the air.

A PA security source said the clash started when an officer from the PA Civil Defense Force accused the victim of staring at him in an awkward manner while he was walking in the street. The two exchanged insults and then opened fire at each other, the source added.

West Bank General Intelligence chief Tawkif Tirawi urged his men to display self-restraint and warned them against taking the law into their own hands.

Which all goes to show that a thug by any other name remains a thug.