World’s Smallest Violin

The “World’s Smallest Violin” feature is one I like on James Taranto’s Best of the Web. He has a little violin graphic that accompanies these stories; I’ll steal the name, but not the fiddle. Here is my nominee for today, from a story about Palestinian gunmen who shot up the neighborhood around the Muqata in Ramallah, where Abbas’s headquarters are:

After the shooting spree, restaurateur Osama Khalaf surveyed the bullet holes, overturned tables, and shattered glass in his posh Darna restaurant, a favorite of PA officials. The moistness in Mr. Khalaf’s eyes and his halting speech showed that something that money cannot replace has been taken from him by the gunmen: his sense of personal security. “They struck every corner of this place,” he says, pointing to bullet holes above the sink, in the beverage refrigerator and in the television of the VIP lounge.
It was a pleasant spring night, and there were about 180 people inside the restaurant and on its terrace, when the gunmen stormed in and began shooting, Khalaf said. “People ran into the kitchen to hide, but the gunmen then started shooting in the kitchen,”
“I hope that this incident gives enough support to the Palestinian Authority to put an end to such people,” Khalaf says.

It’s tough when the television in the VIP lounge of the PA’s favorite restaurant gets shot up. I can see how that could put a dent in your “sense of personal security.” But that’s something the Israelis have been putting up with for a long time now.

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