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…is the title of a New York Times Magazine article by Deborah Sontag, that complements the pieces I’ve posted about Palestinian polling data, politics, and the settlement issue below, and which I mentioned in an ensuing discussion on Charles Johnson’s “little green footballs” site. As I acknowledge there, this is anecdotal stuff, a reporter’s notebook of her conversations with Palestinians from all (or at least many) walks of life and political persuasions. The point is, there’s a debate going on among Palestinians, too, one that is obscured by polling numbers. It’s worth reading in full; herewith some interesting excerpts:

[Abed al-Raouf Barbakh, Fatah street leader, impatient with Arafat:] ”We are tired and fed up with all the fighting,” he said. ”We want all the blood that has been shed to be enough. Give us our small, little country, our West Bank and Gaza, and then it will all end. Israel can keep Israel and leave us the hell alone.” [...]

[Father of Palestinian Christian businessman rebukes son for being impressed with suicide bombers:] ”Excuse me, David, but what did they do, these noble creatures? Blow themselves up? They blew themselves up and blew us up with them. To hell with them. What is the result of their self-sacrifice? Now America is saying Arafat is bin Laden? Bravo for Hamas.” [...]

In Palestinian eyes, however, the outline of an offer put on the table by Ehud Barak ”fell far short of minimum requirements for a viable, independent Palestinian state,” as a senior Palestinian negotiator wrote in a letter to members of the United States Congress. Barak was offering nothing more than ”three noncontiguous cantons” surrounded by Israeli-controlled territory in the West Bank, the letter continued, concluding, it ”would have made Palestine nothing more than Arab ‘Bantustans’ perpetually at the mercy of Israeli economic and military closures.”

[Hussam Khader, Palestinian independent member of Parliament. agrees with above, considers Arafat corrupt. He says, if negotiations start again:] ”it will be the same corrupt people representing us,” Khader said. ”I pray to God that I wake up one morning and discover that these people have fled to Europe with their money and their children. If I were Yasir Arafat, I’d start to clean house. If he wants to end his life as a hero, he will do this. Otherwise, Arafat will not be remembered by history. I am told that there is a saying in the Torah that many who are now in their graves believed that life would not continue without them. But it did.” [...]

On the fateful day in October 2000 when a Palestinian mob set upon two Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, Abdel Jawad went to the scene, which was near his house, and urged Palestinian police officers to turn their weapons on the mob. ”I was almost lynched myself,” he said. … He last left Ramallah in June, when he traveled to Amman. On his return, he ended up stuck at a checkpoint near Jericho, baking in a clot of traffic as young Israeli soldiers slowly examined each car, single-file. ”As I sat there, with the cars beeping and the soldiers barking at people twice their age, I actually had a fantasy — it was like in slow motion — of getting out of my car and killing those soldiers. And I am a humanist. But I felt it firsthand; these are the daily humiliations that push Palestinians to commit acts that are not in our self-interest. Israel is doing its best to get us all to join Hamas.” [...]

Sari Nusseibeh, the president of Al-Quds University in Jerusalem and the P.L.O. representative in the city, even went so far as to gore a sacred cow: the right of return of Palestinian refugees to the towns and villages they lost in 1948. Nusseibeh said publicly [link by TN] what Palestinian negotiators have long known — that the right of return is a deal breaker. A two-state solution, he said, implied one home for Israelis and one for Palestinians — not one for the Palestinians and the other also for the Palestinians.” His remarks caused a tremendous ruckus, but Arafat stood by Nusseibeh. [...]

[Ahmad Abu Salem, truck driver wounded by in Israeli/Palestinian crossfire:] ”I think it’s in the interest of the people to calm things down because we are the ones who are paying a heavy price. I feel bad that the Israelis have lost innocent civilians. But we have lost more. We are under siege. We are hungry. We are unemployed. We are — I am — crippled.” [...]

[A patriarch and his family in Gaza; some sons in PA police, others are pro-Hamas. Some are wearing New York Giants knitted caps:] I asked the Hamasniks if they were Giants fans. ”It’s just for warmth,” one said, squirming and folding under the logo on the knitted hat. The other barked out, ”I like New York because of what happened to it in September.” A Palestinian police officer brother jumped to his feet: ”I condemn that remark. Eat it! Eat it!” The Hamasnik snickered, ”Or what, you’ll arrest me?” The patriarch laughed throughout the conversation. ”This is normal for Gaza,” he said. ”You find a father who’s Hamas, his son may be Fatah or vice versa.”

None of this proves anything, other than that there are a lot of opinions out there, some I like and some I don’t. Note, though, that there is Palestinian discussion of the “right of return” to Israel proper, by highly placed Palestinians; check out that “said publicly” link above. And that there is a war-weariness and willingness to acknowledge Israel’s right to exist by “regular radical” Palestinians like Barbakh. But also think about good people like Abdel Jawad, who tried to prevent the lynching of those Israeli soldiers and is therefore a good deal braver than I think I’d be. If he’s running out of good will, too, no wonder those poll results look so ugly.

I’m not saying I even know what I think. I’m profoundly disturbed by the poll results I see out of the West Bank and Gaza, and I utterly condemn bombing and strafing pizza parlors, discos, and bar mitzvahs in the name of resistance. Yet I also know the blame for the current situation is not all on the Palestinians or their leadership. We can not allow ourselves to become as simplistic and bloodthirsty as the worst of the players in the Middle East, the Mughniyahs and Hamas types. Nor can we allow ourselves to be duped by duplicitous voices like Arafat’s. Yet Arafat remains the acknowledged leader of the Palestinians. Were there elections, he’d likely be re-elected, judging from other results in the same poll. So … what? Kill him? Bomb the West Bank day and night? Will that work? Has it so far?

Via Sean McCray (”next right”), the New York Post article “GODFATHER ARAFAT’S LIES ABOUT TERROR“, by Uri Dan:

Then Israel provided the audio - months of intercepted conversations between Arafat and his aides discussing the $20 million arms deal with Iran.

The Israeli surveillance operation even caught Arafat and his aides’ involvement with Imad Mughnia, one of the 22 men on a U.S. most-wanted list of terrorists.

The name of Mughnia, a Lebanese Shiite with close ties to Iranian intelligence, emerged in the investigation of the Marine-barracks blast in Lebanon in 1983 that killed 250 Americans, and later as the commander of the hijacking of a TWA plane to Beirut.

Assuming the story holds up, and the technical evidence bears out that these recordings were of Arafat et al, that pretty much ends my theory that this was done by other political factions within the PA; I suppose it was always a stretch. And if Arafat is dealing with Mughniyah, that’s worse news than the Karine-A. Mughniyah is a bona fide sociopath, personally responsible for torturing CIA station chief William Buckley to death in Lebanon, and beating to death a Navy Seal aboard that hijacked plane. Now affiliated with Hezbollah, Mughniyah was once part of Arafat’s Fatah group.

On Tuesday, I briefly noted some of the results of a survey by a Palestinian polling group. Gary Farber (”Amygdala”) picked up on that; yesterday, he wrote in far more detail about that survey than I did. He broke up his comments in to three parts; have a look. Farber itemizes findings like these:

An overwhelming majority, ranging between 91%-98%, views all Israeli violent acts against Palestinians as acts of terror.

An overwhelming majority, ranging between 81%-87%, does not view Palestinian violent acts against Israelis as acts of terrorism.

While 94% would view as an act of terrorism a future use by Israel of chemical and biological weapons against Palestinians, only 26% would view the same act as terrorism if carried out by Palestinians against Israelis.

Now, the final item above is just ugly; the 74% of Palestinians who accord themselves the unbridled right to use heinous weapons are evidence of a population in a vicious frame of mind. Many of the other poll findings are equally unsettling; yet settlements, checkpoints, and all the rest of the real grievances of occupied Palestinian (or, if you prefer, occupied Jordanian) life can not be excuses for contemplating chemical attacks, or for carrying out suicide bombings and other mass attacks on civilian targets.

But as Farber points out, polls like these are snapshots; I would add that this one is a wartime snapshot. Americans themselves are in the grip of wartime thinking; “and rightly so,” we think and I agree. But not so long ago, we weren’t; we now contemplate wars (plural) each of which Americans would have rejected out of hand prior to September 11. Similarly, not so long ago, Palestinian polling numbers looked very different, too; indeed, this point is developed within the polling director’s article in Foreign Affairs which I also mentioned on Tuesday. Substantial majorities supported the peace process, radical Islamist groups were much less popular; in July, 2000 the level of support for violence was around half of the roughly 60% figure it would be one year later.

What has changed is that an an Oslo peace accord was derailed by Palestinian radicals — but also by Israeli ones. Remember the 1994 Hebron mosque massacre? At least 39 people died in a hail of bullets — and the perpetrator’s grave has been turned into a shrine by radical Israelis. Remember who killed Rabin? But mainly, remember that since the 1993 Oslo accord, over 20,000 housing units — over half financed with public funds — were started in the occupied areas.* A self-respecting, patriotic Palestinian would be about as fed up with Israel now as many Americans are about Al Qaeda, and that can make for a lot of ugly opinions, especially if you’re losing. And so an uprising began, one that is morphing into a war before our eyes. The Palestininan Authority fans the flames with its school curricula, its media and information policy, and its attitude towards violence — whether that attitude amounts to “nudge, nudge, wink, wink” or direct support for weapons shipments, bombings, riots, and the rest of it. I believe that Arafat and the Palestinians made a dreadful miscalculation in turning down the Barak proposals at the 2000 Camp David summit. But Israel has arguably pursued a miscalculated, two-faced strategy of its own since Oslo as well, a strategy that even Barak shared in.

I don’t for a second hold with suicide bombings of civilian targets. That, more than anything else, is why I have been closing my eyes to the settlements issue; the people who do such things are not seeking real negotiations, in my view. If Israel dismantled every settlement and retreated to pre-1967 borders, such people would continue their war; to them, Israel itself is the provocation, not the settlements. Such people must be defeated no matter what; at the end of the day, Israel’s right to defend its citizens against such criminality is paramount and undeniable, by any means necessary.

But in the long run, and in fact even in the middle and short run, Israel’s right to occupy Palestinian(/Jordanian) land and provoke, humiliate, and sometimes abuse its inhabitants is not paramount and is eminently deniable**. I should think even the most fiery “warbloggers” over here (in fact, especially the most fiery ones) might well find themselves ardent Palestinian nationalists if they were to walk a mile in Palestinian shoes, and would find themselves sorely tempted to split hairs, set aside scruples, and lie, cheat, steal and kill generally in the fight against their enemies.

Under the current circumstances, a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories may be the best outcome we can realistically hope for. But that outcome will be fought tooth and nail by many settlers, a sizeable number of whom have come to view their settlements as part of God’s plan, more than some return to their literal ancestors’ homeland. That can’t be good enough for the rest of us; any old Tom, Menachem, or Mohammed can come along claiming he’s doing Yahweh’s, the Lord’s, or Allah’s will. Americans owe it to themselves and their Israeli friends to resume urging Israel to cease settlement construction, and ultimately to find a way to end the occupation. That doesn’t amount to “letting the terrorists win”; it amounts to being honest with ourselves and our friends.

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*The Oslo accord took no specific position on the settlements issue. The chief ongoing argument against the settlements is that they violate the Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention stating that “The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.” Israel’s supporters argue that the settlements are not illegal under international law. But the very double-edged argument is that Jews and Israelis have a “right of return” to the lands they were expelled from after 1948; this very assertion by Palestinians to land within Israel’s pre-1967 borders that they were just as arguably expelled from after 1948 is considered the deal-killer sine qua non by many Israel supporters. The legalities of the matter may be in dispute; but the Israeli position seems intransigent, and based on the calculation that the settlements can be defended by force, just as Israel’s pre-1967 borders can be defended by force. That’s no better a basis for negotiations than the Palestinian one many Israelis suspect, bent on pushing Israel back into the sea.

**Even by soldiers in its own army, it seems: the New York Times reports “Reservists Balk at Occupation, Roiling Israel“.

Update: Jim Henley and Charles Johnson respond (+/- favorably, +/- skeptically). Read their comments for yourself, of course; summarizing, Henley points out that the Barak proposal wasn’t all that great, and left settlements in place. Johnson points out that there will still be lots of Arab troublemakers egging Palestinians on to continue the fight, even if Israel withdraws. I join in a discussion of Johnson’s post.

The poll was conducted by PSR (see prior post) from December 24-29, 2001, questioning 1357 Palestinians in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; margin of error +/- 3%. Among the most telling results:

• 92% support attacks against settlers, 58% support attacks against civilians inside Israel.
• In the event of a peace agreement, 66% would support joint Palestinian-Israeli economic institutions and ventures — but only 6% would support adopting school curriculum that recognizes Israel and teaches children not to demand return of all Palestine to Palestinians.
• 94% oppose the US campaign against Bin Laden; only 16% believe that Bin Laden was responsible for the 9/11 attacks.
• Only 17% would support a political system “as in Iran” for the future Palestinian state. 42% said they would prefer a system “as in other Arab countries, like in Egypt, Jordan, and Syria; and 19% said they would prefer a system “as in the US, Europe and Israel.”It’s hard to pick the most depressing item above, but I’d pick number 2; it tells me Israel’s right to exist is not really acknowledged at all by 94% of Palestinians, that any settlement is just a preliminary truce before the next round of bombings. But maybe I’m missing something.

…is the title of a very interesting and well-linked article in Foreign Affairs by Khalil Shikaki, Associate Professor of Political Science at Bir Zeit University, and Director for Policy and Survey Research at the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR) in Ramallah. Khalil begins,

Has Yasir Arafat, the president of the Palestinian Authority (PA), orchestrated and led the second Palestinian intifada in order to gain popularity and legitimacy while weakening Israel and forcing it to accept extreme Palestinian demands? Or has the uprising been a spontaneous response by an enraged but disorganized Palestinian “street” to Likud Party leader (and later Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon’s September 2000 visit to the site known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as al Haram al Sharif, and the failure of the Oslo peace process to produce an end to Israeli military occupation? Most Israelis take the first position, whereas most Palestinians take the second. Both are mistaken.

The truth is that the intifada that began in late September 2000 has been a response by a “young guard” in the Palestinian nationalist movement not only to Sharon’s visit and the stalled peace process, but also to the failure of the “old guard” in the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to deliver Palestinian independence and good governance. The young guard has turned to violence to get Israel to withdraw from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip unilaterally (as it withdrew from South Lebanon in May 2000) and simultaneously to weaken the Palestinian old guard and eventually displace it.

Shikaki describes a “young nationalist guard” in an alliance of convenience with Islamist groups like Hamas, and with political goals of its own in opposition to the “old nationalist guard” centered around Arafat. (This is similar to but obviously better informed than guesses and observations of my own about the Karine-A affair — which happened after this article was published.) Shikaki describes three scenarios for this internal Palestinian struggle and the winners:

As predicted here earlier — not that it was a tough call — the Washington Post reports fewer PA boats that float, or at least fewer PA boats that look brand new:

Israel, dismissing the Palestinian moves as insufficient, fired on Palestinian naval targets in Gaza early Saturday, setting a fuel depot and a barracks on fire, Palestinian security sources told the Associated Press. A small patrol boat was also hit. There were no reports of casualties.

Likewise, Arafat moved to arrest the ringleaders-or-scapegoats Fuad Shubaki and Adel Mughrabi. Israel continues to maintain that only Arafat could have authorized such an important transaction, while PA officials deny he had knowledge of the operation.

The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz reports at the end of an article (“Powell: PA linked to arms ship, no direct connection to Arafat“) today:

Officials in the Palestinian Authority are split over the Karine A affair, Israel Radio reported. Both allies and enemies of Fuad Shubaki [and] Abu Mughrabi thought to have masterminded the weapons smuggling plot, are trading accusations of blame for conception of the plot and its failure.

These officials admitted that it has become clear to them that elements with in the Palestinian Defense establishment had conceived of the plot to smuggle weapons from Iran aboard the ship Karine A into Palestinian held areas of the West Bank.

According to an article from the New York Times (”Skipper Ties Arms Cargo to Arafat’s Group“), Shubaki is a close aide to Arafat. It may be worth noting that according to this article, the Karine A captain only dealt with Shubaki’s subordinate Mughrabi by radio, under the assumed name Adelwallah — and never saw him. So my current theory — Hamas/Hezbollah subversion of highly placed PA naval personnel — is still alive. Of course, so is the theory that Arafat himself ordered the weapons.

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1/11, 10:30pm: units->personnel makes more sense.

Not news to anyone by now, just recorded here: ABC News: “Israel releases detailed account of its seizure of an arms shipment at sea“. The story connects the dots between the Palestinian Authority, Hezbollah, and Iran. Or at least elements thereof.

On Sunday, an Israeli military official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the Karine A was purchased in Lebanon by Adel Mughrabi, who it said buys arms for the Palestinian Authority.

The ship sailed to Sudan, where it picked up a cargo of “innocent merchandise” that it took to Yemen, the official said. In Yemen’s port of Hudayda, the original crew was replaced by a crew headed by Omar Akawi, a colonel in the Palestinian naval police, the official said.

Last month, on orders from Mughrabi, the vessel sailed to a point near the island of Qeys, off the coast of Iran, to a prearranged meeting with a ferry that had brought the weapons in about 80 large crates, the official said.

The arms included Katyusha rockets, guided anti-tank missiles, mortars, anti-tank mines, machine guns, assault rifles, explosives and large quantities of ammunition.

Inside the crates the weapons were packed in watertight plastic cylinders that were manufactured in Iran and can be set to float at whatever depth is desired, the official said.

One crew member, a Palestinian diver, had been trained by the Iranian-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon on how to operate the cylinders, the official said, adding that a Hezbollah instructor was on board the ferry and gave the diver a last-minute refresher course.

At best you have a Palestinian Authority (PA), or at least its navy, completely riddled with Hezbollah/Hamas types, to the extent that they can write a check to buy a ship. At worst, of course, Arafat himself was caught with his pants down. Maybe I have “best” and “worst” reversed here, or more to the point, they’re equally bad. It’s hard to envision this submarine-cargo method working without the connivance and cooperation of high-to-highest level PA naval personnel. As described, the operation seems to imply that using PA boats to pick up a few cylinders at a time is the most efficient way of breaking a pretty effective Israeli blockade. Not for long, I would guess; look for a lot fewer PA boats that float over the next few days. Interesting that one of the two attackers who killed four IDF soldiers today (partly for “the piracy of capturing the ship”! now that’s chutzpah) was himself a PA naval police officer.

The German newsweekly Der Spiegel has published an interview with Yasser Arafat in its 12/22/2001 issue. Here are some excerpts:

Arafat: …To understand what Sharon really wants, I’ll tell you the following: After the Israeli army conquered East Jerusalem in June 1967, the defense minister at the time gave the order, that no non-Muslims were to be allowed to pray on the plateau of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, holy to us Muslims. All Israeli heads of government have adhered to this.

When I heard last year that Sharon wanted to demonstratively break this rule, I went to Prime Minister Barak, and expressly asked him to prevent the Sharon visit, in order to avoid the predictable unrest that the visit would cause. Barak did not answer me. Sharon visited the Aqsa plateau, and there were deaths and injuries, which everyone knew would happen. [...]

SPIEGEL: The problem is getting more complicated: Israel’s Prime Minister does not recognize you as the legitimate representative of and speaker for the Palestinian people. You are “irrelevant” to him.

Arafat: That’s his problem, not mine. The whole world is ignoring that anyway. Just now President Bush congratulated me in my capacity on occasion of the end of Ramadan. I was elected democratically by my people. An international observer commission, with ex-President Jimmy Carter, the president of Portugal, and the ex-Premier of Japan, watched over the election. What makes Sharon tick? …

If the Madrid agreements and the principle of “land for peace” endorsed by the great powers don’t suit him, could he then say: Madrid is null and void for me? [...]

SPIEGEL: How serious are you about proceeding against Hamas and Islamic Jihad? Are you really even able to?

Arafat: Even though Israel is surprisingly hindering us from doing so, we are proceeding very efficiently against the instigators of violence and terror. We’ve closed all offices of both organizations, and have arrested everyone on [American Middle East envoy] Zinni’s list who we’ve been able to get our hands on. We want very much to stop these insane actions once and for all. We are completely meeting our responsibilities, even though Israel is not meeting its own responsibilities, doesn’t pull back from the autonomous areas, blockades towns and ignores all agreements

SPIEGEL: Many Palestinians see your harsh actions against the violent Islamists as a capitulation to Israel.

Arafat: I know, some of their speakers go even further. But I say to everyone very clearly and to the point: We tolerate only the legitimate Palestinian national Autonomous Government, composed of freely elected members of the Palestinian legislative council. Whoever does not submit to the legitimate decisions of the central authority, or even acts against the national interests of our people, consciously puts himself offsides legally. He must take the consequences. [...]

SPIEGEL: If no more attacks happen, will the peace process resume?

Arafat: The whole world expects that with us. After all, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is not confined to security matters.

SPIEGEL: But if there are more explosions?

Arafat: Listen: The Americans had an extremely bloody war with the Viet Cong, and yet both sides negotiated in Paris for five years. [...]

SPIEGEL: The negotiations in Taba, Egypt, where Ehud Barak gave you 95% of the territories and substantial control over Jerusalem, were broken off…

Arafat: … it was 87% in a very special framework.

SPIEGEL: And you would negotiate about that again?

Arafat: Of course, we don’t have to go back to square one. I’m sure that if the negotiations resume, we could come to agreement relatively quickly about the questions left open in Taba and which we could have solved with more time. Despite my age, I even believe that I will be granted the chance to cross the Egyptian-Palestinian border and the Israeli border on the “Railroad of Peace” commissioned by Egyptian President Mubarak.

My own comments, in no particular order:

• Der Spiegel played softball for the most part: “Your harsh actions,” etc.
• The one hard question (”Are you really even able to?”) gets the answer “we’ve arrested everyone we’ve been able to get our hands on.” That seems clever, but basically admits either (1) he’s not trying very hard, or (2) he really isn’t able to stop Hamas, Islamic Jihad, or their ilk.
• 87% vs. 95%!!!
• Like it or not, Arafat is right about one thing: he is the elected leader of the Palestinians. That can change, of course, both in fact and in significance; as many have pointed out, “Palestinian” is a bit of a recent construct, “Jordanian” would be nearer the mark. I’m intrigued by the idea of Israel returning or granting sovereignty over the 95% (excuse me, 87%) to Jordan, putting up some high fences, and saying goodbye to the region for a while. Arafat could be governor of the Palestinian region of Jordan, for all most people would care.
• The Viet Cong were shooting the whole time, too. Is Arafat for or against the use of violence in this dispute? If he’s for it, are the Israelis not entitled to self-defense in kind?
• I’ll have to look this up, but it’s my understanding that it was Sharon’s perfect right to go to Al Aqsa, whatever the Palestinian street may have thought about it; Arafat himself only refers to Israeli usage, not to any formal agreement. It doesn’t inspire confidence to see Arafat trump Sharon’s visit up to the level of a broken treaty. Moreover, Middle East expert Daniel Pipes makes a pretty convincing argument that Jerusalem itself has not always been that significant to the Muslim world. Personally, I sometimes think making Jerusalem part of the Czech Republic or Mongolia might be best, but they doubtless don’t need the grief.
• An enduring image: Arafat on a choo-choo train for peace. Well, it’s good for a grin, anyway.

So killing a bomber-ringleader needs to be avenged? By what dishonest logic? The fellow’s whole rationale was that dying in the fight with Israel was a holy act that would get him and his henchmen into Paradise. So getting rid of him was a win-win proposition: Israel had one less flipping freakoid enemy, said freakoid was out of his misery, and all his nearest and dearest got to believe he was in “Paradise.” But of course not: there was never any serious belief by anyone that Allah was involved. And no one blows himself up just to get a settlement torn down, either: the goal is total victory, killing as many Israelis as possible in the process, and driving the rest out.

We’ve bought into the theater of the Middle East for too long: this reprisal is calibrated to match that one, diplomats phone each other to share the delusion that they matter, media personalities chatter about the cycle of violence, peace prizes are bestowed. And killers keep recruiting simpletons and psychopaths to do their bidding. “Violence begets violence,” my foot; no, ineffectively answered violence begets violence. Hamas bombers and their brethren across the Islamist spectrum will cease and desist when they know — not just worry, know — that their surviving families won’t get spiffy new apartments out of the deal, that it’s just a matter of time before their leaders turn up dead, and before they find themselves flying out the side of the apartment they’re building their nail-bombs in.