Like Iran and its surrogates, the late Osama bin Laden's organization has established networks around Israel's borders in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egyptian Sinai. In the Gaza Strip, harbored by Hamas, al Qaeda operatives have built six villas on the model of Bin Laden's compound in Pakistan. All the same, Mahmoud Abbas will join Hamas Wednesday in signing a Palestinian unity accord that opens the West Bank door not only to Hamas terror but to its al Qaeda partners enjoying sanctuary in Gaza.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu rejected the accord initialed by the two Palestinian rivals Fatah and Hamas in Cairo April 27 before the ink had dried. "You can't have peace both with Israel and Hamas," he warned the Fatah-led Palestinian Authority, although at least three previous pacts vanished without a trace. He was not alone in being caught napping by the fast work in Cairo; so too were Washington and Ankara, although both are running Palestinian back channels.

The bomb which exploded Wednesday afternoon, March 23, near the No. 74 bus stop opposite Binyanei Haooma at Jerusalem's main northern entrance was detonated by remote control. It killed a female tourist and injured 30-40 passers-by and passengers. debkafile's counter-terror sources report that the attack was professionally executed by a team of three to five with local aid from Jerusalem Palestinians. Intelligence and terror experts are certain a terrorist organization activated trained bombers and may do so again.

Though divided between Hamas-ruled Gaza and Fatah-ruled Ramallah, the Palestinians        are holding protests in both places against both their governments Tuesday, March 15, demanding that they heal the rift and reconnect the two territories.  

debkafile's military sources report that Israel's military and police are on the highest state of preparedness lest the demonstrators storm out of Palestinian towns on the West Bank and Gaza Strip and rampage against nearby Israeli communities and towns.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak has joined the foreign and domestic chorus pushing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to launch a fresh initiative to end the stalemate in the peace process with the Palestinians. debkafile's analysts advise Netanyahu to hold his horses until the Arab revolt is better defined and the shape of the Palestinian leadership and state emerging from the Middle East turmoil is clearer. Arab protesters are ignoring Israel and, for now, its conflict with the Palestinians is a non-issue.

The emir of Qatar had the Al Jazeera network which he owns run the Palestinian Papers to blacken the Palestinian Authority and its leader Mahmoud Abbas in order to please Tehran. But the emir may not have been the only schemer behind the leaks. They may have been contrived ...

The first take of the "Palestine Papers run Sunday night, Jan. 23, appearing on the Qatar-owned Arabic Al-Jazeera TV network is a transparent attempt to discredit Palestinian Authority leaders, especially Mahmoud Abbas and Saab Erekat, as ready to sell their people out by exaggerated concessions to Israel - especially on Jerusalem and Temple Mount. Both dismiss the "papers" as a pack of half-truths and distortions.

debkafile reveals they were sold to the TV network by a disgruntled Palestinian staffer fired from the PA's NFU-Negotiating Support Team.

President Barack Obama is about to withhold the US veto from a Palestinian-Arab motion due to be tabled at the UN Security Council condemning Israel for its settlement policy in the West Bank and Jerusalem, debkafile's Washington sources report. If he does, he will be the first US president to let an anti-Israel motion go through the Security Council and building on the West Bank and even in the forty-year old suburbs of East Jerusalem would become illegal.

Behind the obvious effects of the defense minister's parting with Labor and creation of a new party, there were two unpublished determining factors: A new opening for talks with the Palestinians and the defense minister belief that he cut short a dangerous coup against the government with military overtones.

Since Friday night, Jan. 7 - when Israeli paratrooper, Sgt. Nadav Rutenberg, 20, from Moshav Ramot Hashavim, died and four others were injured during an ambush from the Gaza Strip - Palestinian terrorists have stepped up attacks in Gaza and the West Bank, debkafile's military sources report. Saturday, a Jenin suicider armed with two pipe bombs was shot dead trying to rush an Israeli checkpoint in the Jordan Valley. Four mortar shells from Gaza injured 3 foreign workers.

The US, Russia and Israel have come around to an interim accord as the only way out of the impasse in talks with the Palestinians. Obama has canvassed European leaders. If the Palestinians continue to hold out, they will feel a chill wind blowing in from Washington.

The Palestinians believe they can use international misfortunes to fast-forward their national goals. They watch US President Barack Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu grappling with political woes and the European Union in a life-and-death struggle to save the euro and at least five economies from falling off a cliff edge. Seeing a big chance for gain, Palestinian lead negotiator Saeb Erekat has produced the astonishing new figure of 7 million refugees whom Israel must accept.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had the thankless task of writing finis on the Obama administration's two-year effort to persuade Israelis and Palestinians to talk peace. It was time "to grapple with the core issues of this conflict" - borders, refugees, settlements, water and Jerusalem – she said, without mentioning timetables. debkafile reports the administration has now turned to a new plan for employing Turkey - first to broker a deal with Iran, then an Israeli-Syrian accord.

Saturday, Oct. 2, the PLO Executive Committee gave Mahmoud Abbas the mandate he requested for breaking off the US-sponsored "direct talks" with Israel until all Jewish construction ceases on the West Bank and Jerusalem. debkafile's Middle East sources report however that this negative is neither total nor final because it is unacceptable to Washington, Cairo and Riyadh. He has therefore left the door partly open to more diplomacy.

Using new tactics imparted by Iranian Guards and Hizballah, Hamas terrorizes West Bank highways to sabotage US Middle East diplomatic initiative and topple Mahmoud Abbas.

debkafile reports Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is misleading his ministers by presenting the direct talks opening with the Palestinians on Sept. 2 as a diplomatic victory. He has omitted to disclose that the Obama administration has reneged on the secret deals for paving the way to the talks. One part was US non-reaction to the Bushehr reactor start-up, another to refrain from twisting Israel's arms in negotiations with the Palestinians.The White House is standing by neither.

Obama considers personally launching direct Israeli-Palestinian talks from Cairo. Not all his advisers think it's a good idea.

The Obama-Netanyahu assurances of early direct peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians have run into an unexpected delay: Mahmoud Abbas has succumbed to cancer and is preparing for major abdominal surgery.

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu was assured of a much friendlier and correct White House welcome for his fifth encounter with President Barack Obama July 6 - compared with his unmannerly reception in March. Still, five time bombs are ticking under their seats.The most combustible are Iran's drive for a nuclear weapon and the future of Israel's reputed nuclear arsenal. The US and Israel clearly do not see eye on eye on how and when to take action against Iran.

That the proximity talks between Israel and the Palestinians are bound to fail is an open secret although the West Bank is ripe for a deal. But Obama, Netanyahu and Abbas can't overcome their mutual antipathy to save the day.