Had a great time in Petra - more about that soon. But returned to Amman today to hear of two less-than-tragic deaths: Abu Daoud, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre, and Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Hezbollah's "spiritual leader."
The sad part of this news is certainly not that these men are gone. Rather, I'm disappointed to see that both PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Lebanese PM Saad Hariri are issuing condolences or public statements of sadness. I'm sure this is being done largely to assuage domestic political pressure, especially in Lebanon, but these statements certainly provide ammunition to the crazy right-wingers in the US. I can hear the reasoning already - "Abbas regrets Abu Daoud's death, therefore he's clearly a terrorist sympathizer, therefore all Palestinians are terrorist sympathizers, therefore there's no way we can criticize Israel for its policies towards the Palestinians." Netanyahu is in Washington on Tuesday... let's see if these deaths are brought up either by the leaders or by the media.
Happy Fourth, to everyone reading in the US (and Chile) - for some reason, it's not as big of a holiday here...
While I am not conversant on this issue, it is interesting to note that the Washington Post's obit. on Fadlallah was similarly subdued and did not dwell on his role with Hezbollah but rather praised his efforts as peacemaker and religious leader.
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