THE INTIFADA IS IN ITS DEATH THROES!

          For the schadenfreude lovers out there, check out this grim assessment from an undisclosed location somewhere in Yassir's anarchy theme park...

It's not so much what Zakariya Zubeidi, the fugitive leader of the West Bank Aksa Martyrs Brigades, says, but how he says it. Zubeidi speaks in the vacant tones of a ghost.           And four years after he first picked up a rifle, this peace-activist-turned-local-hero-and-killer eulogized the Palestinian intifada in words similar to those in which he described himself.           "The intifada is in its death throes. These are the final stages - this I can confirm," he said on Wednesday.

          "They sought to destroy Israeli society. They only destroyed their own. Dimwits.



          "Money quote...

"Not only was the intifada a failure, but we are a total failure. We achieved nothing in 50 years of struggle; we've achieved only our survival."

          Of course, the Pals, like the Bourbons forget nothing and learn nothing.

Asked if he intends to trade in his M16 for a briefcase, Zubeidi, who sees himself as a Robin Hood, responded that "such a path is not currently ordained for a man likely to be killed."

          Still, it's good news. Maybe after failing with violence for over half a century, they will try actual negotiation and comprimise.

"It is a double-edged dagger," said Zubeidi contemplatively. "If we give up, then we live a life of humiliation. But to keep fighting – it only brings destruction."