For those of you who have been holding your breath waiting for the “Arab Street” to explode since the Saddam death sentence, you can now exhale. Palestinian rent-a-mobs are finally on protest duty.

JENIN, West Bank: Schoolgirls marched and shopkeepers closed down their stores in this West Bank town on Monday in protest at the death sentence handed down against Saddam Hussein by a Baghdad court which found him guilty of crimes against humanity.

Carrying pictures of Saddam, about 250 girls from seven to 13 years old paraded through the town’s refugee camp, chanting “Beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv…”

How do we know this bunch is rented? The receipt is provided.

Under Saddam’s rule Iraq donated $25,000 per household for Jenin residents to rebuild homes destroyed in a 2002 Israeli military offensive there.

“He was such a nice dictator. He paid for our homes to be rebuilt after the evil Jews came in and smashed them. It took months to rebuild our weapons-smuggling tunnels, but we got it done thanks to Saddam.”

And of course, no Middle East protest story would be complete without the “Death to America!” threats.

In the Gaza Strip city of Khan Younis, masked gunmen from a previously unknown group calling itself Arafat’s Army threatened reprisals against foreign citizens in the Palestinian territories if the sentence against Saddam is carried out.

“We warn the American administration and its collaborators not to hurt Saddam Hussein because … we will target all foreigners, especially the Americans and their British supporters,” one of the men said, without giving his name. “We warn all foreigners in the Gaza Strip, especially the Americans, that they will be kidnapped and killed in front of witnesses.”

You might want to put the itinerary for that romantic “Meet and greet with the Arab street” Palestinian vacation on the shelf until all this blows over.