US Secretary of State John Kerry has a novel plan for peace talks on two simultaneous tracks – Israel versus the Palestinians and, for the first time in its history, Israel facing the Arab League, debkafile reports exclusively. After obtaining Arab approval for “minor border amendments,” Kerry says more work remains to be done before talks.

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.

A historic agreement signed in Amman Sunday, March 31, between Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas and Jordan’s King Abdullah II takes a new stand on Jerusalem by accepting the king as Custodian of the Holy Sites, with authority over the Waqf. He will also represent the interests of the Holy Sites “in relevant international forums…” By laying the foundation for internationalizing the oversight of Jerusalem’s holy sites, the document faces trouble in Israel and also among Palestinians.  The two parties’ communiqués differ in defining “Palestinian sovereignty.”

On Day One of his visit to Israel, President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu put to rest their long dispute over an Israeli strike on Iran. In principle, Israel had the right to independently defend itself, they acknowledged, but in practice would not exercise this principle without first consulting with Washington. The president reciprocated with a pledge of expanded military aid to Israel. Both deferred military intervention in the Syrian civil conflict – even for containing its expansion into chemical warfare.

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.

A confederation plan for a Palestinian West Bank state and Jordan  was  the real subject of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s recent conversation with King Abdullah in Amman, debkafile’s sources reveal – not Syria. This idea has become a focal talking point in Amman, Washington and Palestinian centers. It ties in with the report from US and Jordanian sources that Israel and the Palestinians will resume talks in the spring for a long-term interim accord, and defer the core issues indefinitely.

Turkey’s resumption of strategic cooperation with Israel through NATO is a major breakthrough for Binyamin Netanyahu. He is constantly accused of bringing Israel into deep international isolation as he runs for reelection. NATO and Turkey undercut that charge. Barack Obama worked hard to heal the breach between Ankara and Jerusalem - both to strengthen his burgeoning pro-US Middle East axis and to pave the way for the resuscitation of Israel-Palestinian peace talks in March, 2013 in accord with Netanyahu.

The Qatari rulers have again swung like a pendulum for and against President Obama’s Middle East goals, joined now by Egyptian President Morsi. Qatar is shifting is focus towards a radical solution of the perennial Palestinian problem, junking standing peace accords and processes.

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.

Egyptian Sinai is being turned into a lawless wasteland and jihadi recruiting center by the influx of al Qaeda fighters from across the Muslim world. Al Qaeda in Sinai is preparing to open a new front for terror in the western Middle East.

Israel boosted its Syrian and Lebanese border units as special flights carrying thousands of pro-Palestinian activists from Tehran touched down in Damascus for the international Global March to Jerusalem Friday, March 30. Before takeoff, they were split into small groups and tutored by Iranian Al Qods Brigades officers in tactics for breaching Israeli border barriers, bursting through and challenging the Israeli military forces defending the border. They go into action on Palestinian-backed Israel-Arab Earth Day to match disturbances in Israel and the West Bank.

Despite Israeli warnings, the Palestinian Authority is for the first time making the annual Israeli-Arab Earth Day Friday, March 30 a joint Palestinian-Israel Arab event, organizing mass anti-Israel disturbances in Jerusalem, Jaffa and other places, while also instigating West Bankers to smash through Israeli border checkpoints. Syria too will bus thousands of Palestinians to storm Israel’s northern border on the Golan. Both also aim to shake up the Arab summit in Baghdad. The PA is broke after Arab aid was cut off.

The Islamic regime in Tehran was not satisfied with the public support the Iranian Jewish community was forced to confer on the Global March for a Palestinian Jerusalem for which Iran is recruiting Islamists worldwide. Now, the event’s organizers, Majlis Speaker Hossein Sheikh-ol-Eslam and Salim Ghafouri, have ordered the community to send a delegation of young Jewish men to march with the Islamist groups in Lebanon, debkafile’s Iranian sources disclose, where they face the risk of murder or abduction by Palestinian Salafis.

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.

US President Barack Obama declared in ringing tones Wednesday, Nov. 30, "We don't compromise when it comes to Israel's security." Three days later, US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta in a lecture to the Brookings Institute outlined America's demands of Israel: To abstain from attacking Iran and rely on the US; to negotiate with the Palestinians; to reach out to Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and to pursue only goals shared with the US – demands almost synonymous with the Israeli opposition's platform.

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 ...

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.