by Helena Cobban, October 10, 2009
".....But a series of events in recent weeks has sent Abbas’s level of support from his people into a nosedive. The most serious has been the reaction among Palestinians to a decision Abbas or someone close to him made to postpone any further U.N. action on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report into the atrocities committed during last winter’s Israel-Gaza war........
Oren and Netanyahu might be feeling good about fending off this "danger". But the hardball way they – and apparently also U.S. officials – treated Abbas over this affair have considerably complicated the diplomatic game-plan that the Obama administration previously seemed to be following, which relied strongly on building up Abbas’s and Fatah’s political weight relative to that of Hamas.
It is that political balance that has now been tipped – perhaps decisively.......
Abbas’s standing has been reduced not only by the decisions he most recently made regarding Goldstone, but also by the compete stasis in Washington’s peace diplomacy, Washington’s failure to win a settlement freeze from Netanyahu, as it had promised to do – and by the humiliating way Abbas was forced to engage in a "three-way" meeting with Netanyahu and Obama at the U.N. General Assembly in late September.........
Meantime, there is increasing talk amongst both Palestinians and many Israelis of the possibility of a new intifada. If this does occur, it is most likely to be sparked by the massive wave of colonization and linked activities the Israeli authorities have been undertaking in East Jerusalem.
Senior diplomats from neighboring Arab states have warned that, given Jerusalem’s intense significance for Arabs and Muslims everywhere, the effects of a new, Jerusalem-focused intifada could be felt far beyond Palestine."
".....But a series of events in recent weeks has sent Abbas’s level of support from his people into a nosedive. The most serious has been the reaction among Palestinians to a decision Abbas or someone close to him made to postpone any further U.N. action on the recommendations of the Goldstone Report into the atrocities committed during last winter’s Israel-Gaza war........
Oren and Netanyahu might be feeling good about fending off this "danger". But the hardball way they – and apparently also U.S. officials – treated Abbas over this affair have considerably complicated the diplomatic game-plan that the Obama administration previously seemed to be following, which relied strongly on building up Abbas’s and Fatah’s political weight relative to that of Hamas.
It is that political balance that has now been tipped – perhaps decisively.......
Abbas’s standing has been reduced not only by the decisions he most recently made regarding Goldstone, but also by the compete stasis in Washington’s peace diplomacy, Washington’s failure to win a settlement freeze from Netanyahu, as it had promised to do – and by the humiliating way Abbas was forced to engage in a "three-way" meeting with Netanyahu and Obama at the U.N. General Assembly in late September.........
Meantime, there is increasing talk amongst both Palestinians and many Israelis of the possibility of a new intifada. If this does occur, it is most likely to be sparked by the massive wave of colonization and linked activities the Israeli authorities have been undertaking in East Jerusalem.
Senior diplomats from neighboring Arab states have warned that, given Jerusalem’s intense significance for Arabs and Muslims everywhere, the effects of a new, Jerusalem-focused intifada could be felt far beyond Palestine."
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