Simply amazing.

PETA's Peace Plan
• Our friends at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals have outdone themselves this time, sending a deferential letter to Yasser Arafat about a Jan. 26 Jerusalem bombing in which a donkey -- but no human beings -- died after being strapped with explosives and detonated.

"Your Excellency," PETA President Ingrid Newkirk wrote in the note faxed on Monday to Arafat's headquarters in Ramallah. "We have received many calls and letters from people shocked at the bombing. . . . All nations behave abominably in many ways when they are fighting their enemies, and animals are always caught in the crossfire. The U.S. Army abandoned thousands of loyal service dogs in Vietnam. Al-Qaeda and the British government have both used animals in hideously cruel biological weaponry tests. We watched on television as stray cats in your own compound fled as best they could from the Israeli bulldozers. . . . If you have the opportunity, will you please add to your burdens my request that you appeal to all those who listen to you to leave the animals out of this conflict?"

Yesterday we asked Newkirk if she considered asking Arafat to persuade those who listen to him to stop blowing up people as well. "It's not my business to inject myself into human wars," she replied. Israeli Embassy spokesman Mark Regev declined to comment on PETA's plea, but told us: "I find it ironic that the Palestinian leaders choose to send donkeys to kill civilians. Surely, the Palestinian people deserve better than the current bunch of asses who run their affairs."