Christine Hauser of the New York Times must have had to refrain from smiling to herself as she penned her account of Palestinian officials agreeing to form a new, permanent government in the wake of the impending November 4 dissolution of the current, temporary cabinet.

"The Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat asked the prime minister, Ahmed Qurei, to form the cabinet, Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said today, according to news agency reports from Ramallah in the West Bank.

'President Arafat and the Fatah Central Committee have unanimously asked Abu Ala to form a new Cabinet based on the current one,' Mr. Shaath said, using Mr. Qurei's nom de guerre."

Hauser's right, of course. Though she's ostensibly discussing the creation of a Palestinian government, using the more conventional notions of "pseudonym" or "fictitious name" lacks the ever-so-clever double entendre of the French nom de guerre, which is also used in a pseudonymous capacity, but literally means "a war name, or a name used in the course of fighting."

So, when does this government-creating end and the fighting resume? I was so busy quibbling over semantics that I forgot, whose turn is it?