JENIN, THE WEST BANK - Several thousand Scandinavian lemmings leapt to their deaths off a cliff in western Norway today, a move that sources within beleagured Palestinian president Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement attributed to "the desperation of the Palestinian people."

From his jail cell, former Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti placed the blame for the incident squarely on the shoulders of Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's new right-wing coalition, asserting that "the Israeli apartheid government must pull out of the town of Jenin immediately if such martyrdom operations among the oppressed lemming population are to cease."

The deaths of the lemmings mark the largest such action since salmon spawning season, when several thousand fresh-water fish thrust themselves into the jaws of bears in response to the Israeli siege of Chairman Arafat's Ramallah compund.