“Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak furiously branded Yasser Arafat, his one-time partner in peace talks, as a terrorist, after the latest attack on the streets of Jerusalem,” AFP reports.

‘Yasser Arafat happens to behave like a terrorist, he looks like one, he walks like one, he quacks like one, so maybe he is really a terrorist,’ Barak told reporters after meeting with Secretary of State of Colin Powell.

‘It is about time we tell the truth … about his behavior to be able to draw some conclusions,’ said Barak, who also met national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

[…]Barak’s meetings Tuesday at the White House and the State Department came hours after a Palestinian gunman ran amok on the streets of west Jerusalem on Tuesday injuring 39 people.

The United States called on Arafat to immediately do more to crack down on Palestinian militant groups

Sure. Crackdown, Yasser. We’re (yawn) getting really, really tired of this violence-against-innocent civilians nonsense (yawn). We mean it this time (yawn). Get your (yawn) act together. Stop (yawn) firing on Jews.

Is it any wonder that Jerusalem Post publisher Tom Rose, writing in The Weekly Standard, argues that Palestinian peace is an impossibility so long as Arafat’s in power?

—–