The Palestinian authority has arrested a few of the usual suspects and is thrashing around, blaming Hizballah for yesterday’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv: Palestinians Make Bomb Arrests, Accuse Hizbollah.

RAMALLAH (Reuters) - Scrambling to save a battered truce, Palestinian officials arrested three West Bank suspects on Saturday after a suicide bombing that killed four Israelis, but pointed to Lebanon’s Hizbollah as mastermind of the attack.

Friday’s bombing at a Tel Aviv nightclub dealt a heavy blow to peace hopes that had brightened since Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon agreed to a ceasefire at a Feb. 8 summit.

Israel and the United States said the bombing, the first suicide attack in the Jewish state in nearly four months, showed Abbas had to act more forcefully to salvage peace efforts.

But Israeli officials said the Jewish state would show restraint for now.

“We will not tolerate this act,” Abbas, elected last month as Yasser Arafat’s successor, told reporters as he met security chiefs. “We will not allow anyone to sabotage the goals and ambitions of our people … We will bring them to justice.”

Top officials of the three main Palestinian militant groups denied involvement, and Abbas blamed an unnamed “third party.”

A senior Palestinian security official said inquiries indicated the hand of the Hizbollah guerrilla group, and a leader of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades said Hizbollah had even asked it to issue a false claim of responsibility but it had refused.

“All the information we have until now from interrogations shows that Hizbollah is involved,” the official said.

And if Hizballah was involved, it was almost certainly with the full knowledge and cooperation of the Palestinian terror gangs. But Western media would have us believe this little charade and take the word of murderers blaming other murderers, as if Hizballah and Islamic Jihad operate in hermetically sealed environments, isolated from each other.