I made a brief reference to cowardice the other day, in relation to the surrender of Ahmed Saadat and his cohorts, hours after a promise to al-Jazeera about never surrendering. The issue has resonance. Saadat may or may not be getting a pass, but the Palestinian prison staff (the same ones who had apparently been harrassing the British and U.S. monitors prior to their withdrawal) are not getting high marks for their performance in the face of actual danger.

Dozens of Fatah activists in the Bethlehem area signed a petition on Wednesday calling on Abbas to resign and dissolve the PA. “The stripping of the PA security officers in front of the entire world is a disgrace for all Palestinians and Arabs,” they wrote. “If the Palestinian Authority can’t protect its prisoners, it might as well be dismantled.”

Mustafa Barghouti, head of the Ramallah-based Independent Palestine List, said most Palestinians were deeply offended by the pictures featuring the semi-naked policemen. “What is the value of all the PA security forces if Israel could force their members to strip any time?” he asked. “

Hamas’s reaction is somewhat priceless:

Hamas legislators are demanding a commission of inquiry into Tuesday’s IDF raid on the Jericho prison, as many Palestinians expressed outrage over the “humiliating” way in which scores of Palestinian Authority policemen, stripped to their underwear, surrendered.

The fact that this all came about because of Hamas’s promise to release Saadat just adds irony to the pot.

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