This week has seen some pretty interesting developments in the ongoing turmoil and geopolitical soap opera known as the Israeli-Palestinean conflict. On the heels of the World Court ordering Israel to dismantle their wall that encircles the West Bank, today the United Nations voted 150-6 in favor of a resolution demanding the same thing. Not surprisingly, the U.S. was one of the six nations that voted against the resolution.

Both the World Court decision and the U.N. resoution are non-binding but by not complying with these clear opinions against it, Israel is blatantly telling the rest of the world “F*ck you, we don’t give a shit what you say, we’ll do whatever the hell we want to do!” Sound like the attitude of another country’s current administration? It’s absolurely astounding that Israel can be so defiant in the face of overwhelming international opinion.

Of course, not to be outdone, the Palestineans are putting on their own circus act in the form of Yasser Arafat facing internal rebellions over his continued unwillingness to allow much-needed political reforms to proceed within the Palestinean Authority. For decades now, Arafat has controlled Palestinean affairs with an iron fist and along with his rule has come loads of corruption and cronyism. He too is beginning to face overwhelming pressure (always from the outside but not internally as well) to relinquish some power so that the Palestinean Authority can proceed toward statehood.

Earlier, his current Prime Minister handed in his resignation (his first P.M. only lasted four months before becoming totally fed up with Arafat), which Arafat refused to accept. Then factions of Arafat’s own party stormed and burned down his offices in protest of his unwillingness to give up power. Now it looks like Arafat is backing down (for now) and giving into his critics’ demands.

I certainly don’t have all the answers -- I can only look at this situation, observe how both sides are behaving, and become totally exasperated, just like everybody else.