* The Baltimore Sun reports on the failure and irrelevance of the Palestinian Authority:
After more than three years of bitter fighting with Israel … the people of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are increasingly disillusioned with Arafat and the government he leads, the Palestinian Authority. The forces arrayed against him include many of the people who had looked to him as the person who could best help them gain an independent Palestinian state.
* IDF home demolitions are driving Rafah residents to confront smugglers (Haaretz):
Two angry residents of the Al-Salaam neighborhood in Rafah murdered Fathi Abu Ghali, who was active in Rafah’s popular resistance committees, after he dug a new shaft that connected to a smuggling tunnel, capping a series of actions by Rafah residents against tunnel operators
* NY Times: Differing attitudes among Orthodox Jews on Gaza withdrawal
* Anti-terror: Two Al Aqsa leaders killed in Nablus; foiled car bomb attack in Gaza
* Wash Post’s Richard Cohen agrees with Jeff Goldberg on Israeli settlers. (Barbara Sofer and Andrea Levin disagree.)
