Arafat dead

Here is a month-old news item from Israel:

JERUSALEM - Three weeks before the people of the United States choose their resident for the next four years, reports from Israel and elsewhere tellingly reveal how the parties to the Arab-Israeli conflict view the candidates.

While Yasser Arafat’s Palestinian Authority is rooting for Democrat John Kerry, Israel’s Jews overwhelmingly hope President George W. Bush will stay in the Oval Office through 2008.

In the last 8 days, Bush has won and Arafat has died. This week may someday warrant an entire chapter in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Here is to hoping (but not necessarily predicting) that chapter will be a prelude to a turn for the better, and not a turn for the worse, in the quest for ultimate peace.

(For cross-post at Centerfield and comments there, click here.)