John Kerry faces more obstacles than realistic prospects for his many small steps toward reviving the Middle East peace process and bring Hamas as well as Abu Mazen to the negotiating table. For this he is counting on help from the Turkish prime minister and Qatari emir.

When he visits Ramallah Monday, April 8, US Secretary of State John Kerry will try and talk Mahmoud Abbas) out of launching his “civil intifada (uprising)” against Israel without guns on April 15,  the eve of Israel’s national Day of Remembrance for its War Dead and Independence celebrations. debkafile:  Taking a leaf out of Yasser Arafat’s textbook,  Abbas plans to accompany the peace talks Kerry is trying to set up next month with Palestinian unrest.  But there is no guarantee that his intifada won't explode into violence.

Borrowing from Yasser Arafat’s textbook, Mahmoud Abbas plans to stage the third intifada – he promises the Americans a civil campaign without guns – to precede and accompany his first talks with Israel in two years to take place in mid-May under the US aegis.

Obama pledges to extend the US military assistance program for Israel for another decade when it expires in 2017. Netanyahu said he would not order an attack on Iran without first consulting with Washington.

The furious Palestinian protesters of Hebron, Nablus and other West Bank towns and villages are in no mood to hear Israel’s side of any dispute. Their violent protests will continue regardless of whether or not Arafat Jaradat died in jail from Israel mistreatment, as the Palestinian Authority claims, or of heart failure, as Israel replies. Mahmoud Abbas appears to count on reining in the violence whenever he decides it has exhausted its political usefulness. But most intelligence watchers think he is playing with fire.

Obama’s harsh words for Netanyahu enhance his domestic popularity and the size of his victory at the polls next week. The plethora of new parties and faces challenging him suffer from lack of experience, coherence and clarity of message.

Thursday night, Nov. 29, the UN General Assembly grants Palestine non-member observer status within the 1967 borders by majority vote. But to which Palestinian rule does it apply?  Abbas’s Fatah is fading, whereas the extremist Hamas in the Gaza Strip is a rising force. If it qualifies for a place in the Sunni Middle East grouping Egypt, Turkey and Qatar are building with US backing and Israeli approval, Hamas may become the beneficiary of the upgraded Palestinian status won by Abbas.

The Gulf emirs are competing for the favors of Gaza’s Hamas rulers while ready to drop Mahmoud Abbas of Ramallah.

Two agents of Hamas’ Ezz e-Din Qassam military arm were able to penetrate the handpicked unit guarding Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas and spy on him for some years, debkafile reports exclusively. They were finally uncovered and arrested Sunday, Aug. 19. The realization that Abbas’s closest secrets had been passed to Hamas deeply shocked American and Israeli as well as Palestinian security services. They now suspect the entire Palestinian national security apparatus may be riddled with Hamas clandestine cells.

For the first time since 2006, the Palestinian Authority’s security services on the West Bank have stopped cooperating with the IDF in operations and intelligence-sharing for countering terrorism.  Arrests and interrogations of suspects, the most effective way to thwart terrorist plots, have been discontinued and replaced with the old “revolving door” tactic practiced by Yasser Arafat. Israel has accordingly upgraded its terror alert, fearing a resurgence of Palestinian terrorism.

US President Barack Obama hauled Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas over the coals when they talked by phone Monday, March 19. He coldly demanded that the Palestinians return without further delay to the talks in the Jordanian capital of Amman which they quit abruptly after several rounds. Their conversation ended on a harsh note when Abbas refused to return to negotiations.
Monday, Palestinian ex-prime minister Ahmad Qurai (Abu Ala) proclaimed the death of the two-state solution in an Al Quds article.

Without informing US or Israeli security coordinators, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas Tuesday, Dec. 27 suddenly fired the West Bank's top security officer Maj. Gen. Diab el-Ali and replaced him with military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Nidal Dokhan. debkafile reveals this followed a deal with Khaled Meshaal to restore Hamas to the West Bank, retool the PNSF and mount a new anti-Israel "resistance" campaign: mass demonstrations are to smash through West Bank barriers, storm into Israel and break into Jewish settlements.

Monday, Nov. 21, Jordan's King Abdullah II arrived in Ramallah at very short notice for his first visit in more than a decade. He came wearing two hats – one for Saudi Arabia and the Gulf emirates and one for Washington – on an urgent mission to pull Abbas back from a peace deal with Hamas which would deposit the Palestinian Authority in the Iranian-Syrian orbit. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is in the picture. So are the Israeli chief of staff's words on a Gaza operation.

Mahmoud Abbas must suspend his bid for Palestinian membership of the UN and its institutions to get hold of frozen American and Israeli cash transfers. The Palestinian Authority is not only broke because of his missteps, but also made irrelevant by the upheavals in the rest of the Arab ...

The United States has finally given Israel a green light to attack Iran – but only its Red Sea warships not its nuclear sites. But Israel is wary of an armed clash with Iran – at least until Gilad Shalilt is safe at home and it can be sure ...

In their speeches to the UN General Assembly Friday, Sept. 23, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas agreed only on the importance of reviving peace talks. Otherwise they were daggers drawn.  Yet the Middle East Quartet later issued a call for both to start peace talks in a month to end within a year. First, the Palestinian leader handed UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon a formal request for Palestinian membership.

Accounts of the big diplomatic showdown at the United Nations over the Palestinian bid for statehood to be filed Friday, Sept. 23 are premature. Neither the Security Council nor the UN General Assembly will be making decisions this week; US President Barack Obama will not yet be called on to exercise his veto although he remains stuck with the Palestinian dilemma.  debkafile: The Palestinian application is likely to be put on hold for weeks if not months, during which Palestinian independence celebrations could turn violent.

Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas announced Friday, Sept. 16, in Ramallah that he would ask the UN Security Council next week to recognize a Palestinian state. Once they have a state and a flag and recognition, the Palestinians would leave all other issues open for negotiation with Israel, he said. While citing the 1967 borders for a future Palestinian state in reference to his UN application, Abbas stressed that the real Palestinian borders were laid down by the UN in 1947.

Israeli leaders focus on Palestinian UN bid for state recognition to escape grappling with far more serious issues – hostile Turkish steps, Egypt's retreat from peace norms and Hamas' military and weapons buildup.

Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas surprised a group of Israeli intellectuals whom he received in Ramallah Monday, Sept. 5, by informing them that he had met Israel's Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Amman on Aug. 24. debkafile's sources disclose that the Barak-Abbas conversation in Jordan was more businesslike than diplomatic. It revolved around the Palestinian UN application to be submitted on Sep. 20 and clear security limits laid down by Barak for the Palestinian popular street response. Jordan's intelligence chief was also present.