The following is a guest column by Yassir Arafat, Israel’s partnerin peace. It was translated from Arafatese by Reed Albergotti.

Itold my people to stop. I told them to stop passing out candy andcelebrating the Sept. 11 attacks on your people, but they didn’tlisten. I told them, if you keep celebrating, you’re going to wasteall of our candy!

And guess what: They ate all of the Halloween candy. All of thatcandy just because Osi (that’s my pet name for Osama bin Laden) got acouple of your buildings. And they were soooo happy. A bunch ofinfidels, I swear!

Now, there will be no trick-or-treating for Yassir — none. Notlike last year, when I was a terrorist. And that one other year whenI was also a terrorist.

But remember those years I used to dress up like a terrorist whowanted peace — ha! That was such a funny costume — so manycompliments from the international community. Like when I used to gotrick-or-treatingat the White House.

It’s such a shame that we ate all the candy because, this year, Ihave the best costume. I’m dressing up as a living oxymoron! I’mgoing to be a terrorist who joined an anti-terrorist coalition.

Of course, after waiting in line for hours at my local costumeshop, I realized the “living oxymoron” costume is the most popularone in the Middle East.

So, this year, I’m going trick-or-treating with my friends, Syria,Lebanon and Iran and we’re all dressed as the same thing.

We’ll probably do the usual — toilet paper some houses, bomb someschool buses, kill some teenagers at a dance club and then condemnterrorism! It’ll be soooooo much fun.

But, I’m so sad — the children will have no candy. I guess we’lljust give them grenades and pipe bombs.

But honestly, you would all love Halloween in the Middle East. Youcan be anything you want and no one will ask any questions.

I hope things never change.

I mean, I could have had my very own state, especially after Idressed up as a champion of peace. I even went trick-or-treating withYitzhak Rabin. Heck, after that Halloween I spent with Ehud Barak, Icould have even had peace.

I could have had gotten the Israelis to leave the territories, butthen I thought of all the different costumes I could wear — and Ijust couldn’t let it happen.

Because peace makes for boring Halloweens.

And, who wants to be a legitimate leader when you can have so muchfun — and so much candy!

I mean, sure, my people are suffering and all of my crazy costumeshave brought nothing but violence and destruction.

But I LOVE dressing up.

You see, my costumes are so good, they almost seem real. I am sucha master of disguise that I can make it look like Israel is the onewearing the costume — I can completely turn around the tables.

And as long as my people look at Israel, and not at the realproblems plaguing the Palestinian people like corrupt governance,violent incitement in schools and poverty, I can dress up in whatevercostume I choose.

I can prance around the world stage, ringing doorbells, pretendingI’m something I’m not, and keep asking for candy.

–Reed Albergotti is a journalism senior and the opinion editorfor The Daily Aztec.

–This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of TheDaily Aztec. Send e-mail to letters@thedailyaztec.com.Anonymous letters will not be printed — include your full name,major and year in school.