Could the Arafat era really be coming to an end? Or are we being fooled by… SATAN again? The BBC today reported,

Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei has won the backing of the main Fatah faction for a new cabinet.

Fatah MPs had called on Mr Qurei not to give jobs to veterans of Yasser Arafat's time - widely seen as corrupt.

One of the few to remain from the old guard is Nabil Shaath, who will be information minister and deputy prime minister, the BBC has learned.

Mr Qurei faced losing his job after Fatah MPs rejected his initial proposal for a cabinet with just four newcomers.

The legislative council as a whole is expected to vote on the cabinet at 1100 (0900 GMT) on Thursday.

The proposed new line-up does not include the veteran negotiator Saeb Erekat.

Instead it is mostly made up of technocrats and other experts brought in to tackle corruption and social issues.

Don’t forget that Arafat hand-picked Qurei after sacking then-Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas. Abbas had tried to wrench a little control over Palestinian security forces out of Arafat’s hands. But even Abbas is scary.

The BBC is always over-optimistic about matters relating to the Palestinian Authority. I learned my lesson after getting hopeful about the 1993 Oslo Accords, and then watching Palestinians using the “peace process” to only escalate their 100-year war of terror against Jews.

Sorry. I just can’t get hopeful yet about Palestinian/Israeli peace. Yes, acts of terror against Jews have decreased substantially in recent months, but only because of Israeli targeted killings of terrorist vermin (e.g., Hamas, Islamic Jihad, etc., etc.). I do not believe Palestinians will give up their dreams of genocide overnight. As Pete Townsend of The Who so aptly put it:

There's nothing in the street
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-by
And the party on the left
Is now the party on the right
And their beards have all grown longer overnight...

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss