A militant brazenly challenged the new Palestinian security chief Tuesday, firing his weapon outside police headquarters in this West Bank town as the commander was holding meetings in the building. The chief ordered the gunman's arrest, but quickly backed down and let him walk away.The confrontation between Interior Minister Nasser Yousef and Zakariye Zubeydi, a militant who is seen by residents as the ruler of Jenin, illustrated the delicate balance the Palestinian Authority must strike between reining in armed groups through persuasion and fending off international calls for a crackdown.
Like just about everyone else, I'm pretty enamored of the new Palestinian leadership at the moment. But these kinds of stories aren't terribly encouraging, are they?