The Palestinian Authority is broke. Prime Minister Salam Fayyad appealed to "donors and our Arab brothers" Sunday, June 3, for urgent assistance after being forced to halve civil servants' July wages. The US, Turkey and Saudi Arabia could save the PA from bankruptcy – in theory. But, debkafile reports, the Saudis prefer to channel cash to Jordan and Washington's bailout is conditional on Mahmoud Abbas dropping his unilateral UN initiative and going back to negotiations with Israel.

The Arab Revolt erupted in Tunisia on Dec. 18, 2010, exactly six months ago. The latest  DEBKA-Net-Weekly out last Friday offers the first interim report: The uprisings are log-jammed after ousting two Arab presidents: Three rulers, Saudi King Abdullah, Qaddafi and Assad, defy the US and Europe and Yemen is breaking up. Qaddafi, Assad and Saleh are evoking tribal and clan allegiances to survive.
So where does this leave Obama, Netanyahu and Erdogan?
To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly, click here

 The numbers were small, around 40, but the Women2Drive towards independence in a male-dominated society was certainly the most motorized protest of the Arab revolt.  King Abdullah has begun opening the door of government to women's employment and women drivers were allowed Thursday, June 17, to get away with taking the wheel for a day. But the royal house is divided on this issue and at least one powerful prince, Interior Minister Prince Nayef, and most of the religious establishment hold out strongly against liberal or democratic reform.

King Abdullah is determined to save his friends from the fate suffered by Egypt's Hosni Mubarak. The second-generation Saudi royals have got together to pull the kingdom away from its long dependence on the US and command its own fate and interests, even at the price of clashing with ...

Two US high-ranking emissaries in six days to Riyadh have not bridged the differences between Obama and Abdullah. While attaching supreme importance to relations with Washington, Abdullah insists on continuing on his independent policy path and arms purchases from multiple sources.

Saudi and Kuwait officials have warned the US that if Iran activates its first nuclear reactor at Bushehr in May as planned, there is a good chance it will blow up and the entire Gulf region suffer a nuclear disaster on the scale of the misfortune at Japan's Fukushima thereby exposing millions to radiation contamination. In recent Saudi-US talks on the acute crisis in their relations, King Abdullah demanded immediate action by Washington to stop the Iranian plant going on line.

Saudi-US disagreements have solidified for the first time in King Abdullah's decision to put their policy arguments behind him and go for action independent of the US. His first move was to freeze his $60 billion arms purchases from America. His second: to encourage the Yemeni ruler to defy Washington. The blow to American pockets as well as prestige is disastrous: For decades, Saudi Arabia has been the top buyer of American military hardware 

Assad, though helped by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and even the US, is in a panic because his domestic support is crumbling and he is running out of loyal troops to defend his regime .  The Syrian ruler knows better than most how fickle external support can be.  When the chips are down, no foreign power will help him outgun or outrun his own people - and they refused to be pacified by the bones he tries throwing them.

The accord reached between Saudi King Abdullah and the Bahraini monarch Hamas bin Isa Al Khalifa for the oil island's virtual annexation by Riyadh has so incensed Tehran that armed Iranian-Saudi clashes with the potential for all-out warfare may be unavoidable, debkafile's sources estimate.
Shiite-ruled Iraq would back Tehran in the first Shiite-Sunni collision to be sparked by the wave of unrest sweeping the Arab world.  The annexation was first revealed by DEBKA-Net-Weekly on March 25.

King Abdullah warns his princes and fellow-Arab rulers not to rely on the United States to rescue them from domestic unrest or any other threats. He blames Washington for failure to quell Bahrain troubles.

As protesters prepare for Saudi Arabia's Day of Rage on March 11, fears grow across the Arab Gulf that the fall of Saudi King Abdullah will start a chain reaction against the emirs too and rock the world's oil markets.

King Abdullah returned home with a sackful of economic benefits but not enough political reforms to avert the Day of Anger called for March 13. Gunning for the royal house are the young and jobless and the oppressed Shiites.

Hosni Mubarak and his family have moved a large part of their assets – guesstimated at between $20 and $70 billion - from European banks to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Republics against personal guarantees from King Abdullah and Sheik Al Nahyan to block access to outside parties.This is reported by Gulf and West European sources. Mubarak denies ever resigning or handing power to the military. "I never knew Suleiman was going to make that statement."

Iran is claiming the exclusive right to control passage in the Persian Gulf while shooting out a naval tentacle to the Red Sea and Suez Canal. Saudi King Abdullah is so furious with Barack Obama, accusing him of dumping America's best Arab friend, that he is willing to play ...

The conversation between President Barack Obama and Saudi King Abdullah early Thursday, Feb. 10, was the most acerbic the US president has ever had with an Arab ruler, debkafile's sources report. Their falling out on the Egyptian crisis so enraged the king that some US and Middle East sources reported he suffered a sudden heart attack. Rumors of his death rocked world financial and oil markets that morning and were denied by an adviser to the ruling family.

No outsider has seen Saudi King Abdullah, 87, since Dec. 3 when he underwent a second operation, described as "surgery to stabilize several vertebrae on the spinal cord" at the Presbyterian Hospital, New York.  His relatives and the royal retinue have taken over a whole hospital wing and the entire Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, but maintained an unbroken silence for 18 days about the king's medical condition.  Tehran is already looking ahead to the post-Abdullah era.

debkafile's Saudi experts report a serious deterioration in the medical condition of octogenarian Saudi King Abdullah, who is suspected of having suffered a stroke. A court bulletin issued in Riyadh Friday, Nov. 19 reported his admittance to hospital after it was found "that his slipped disc had some blood clots causing pressure on nerves close the disc." Medical specialists consulted by debkafile found this diagnosis implausible: "The blood clot either affected his brain or his legs."

Saudi intelligence, while giving Washington, Berlin and London three early warnings of an impending Al Qaeda -Yemen airborne terror offensive, was itself deeply immersed in the kingdom's back yard organizing, mustering bombers and arming Al Qaeda-Iraq for its biggest operation in the Middle East - the storm of anti-Shiite, anti-Iran violence which swept Baghdad Tuesday, Nov. 2 and left some 130 dead and 300 injured. Shiite Sadr City took the brunt of the attacks.