If all goes as planned – and nothing does – ailing Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat will be eased onto a plane bound for Paris Friday morning. For the Palestinians, it will mark the first day of the rest of their lives. "Arafat is a symbol that comes once every 300 years," Kadoura Fares, a Palestinian Legislative Council member and part of Fatah's so-called Young Guard, told reporters Thursday. Still, he added, "Yes, thank God, we are ready for the worst." That is, for Arafat's death and the subsequent succession process. Oddly in a region of the world so infamous...