Photo: Bye bye Bush and Abbas

The following is being reported in ALL the major press. IHT, MSNBC and everywhere else.

Report: Israeli intelligence chief says Abbas might flee if peace fails

Now Haaretz does not choose its front page pictures lightly.

So, doesn’t the picture say it all.

They’ve got their marching orders.

It seems to mean: in come Hamas

Abbas not part of peace process? Rootless Cosmopolitan

Tony Karon is one of my favorite reads, his articles are articulate, and topical, even if when they are published it is not clear why he has chosen a topic, it often becomes clear later, that the subject matter was a precursor to a political earthquake or at least related to undercurrents within the ruling elite. Fortunately he is a liberal humanist. Actually I can even comment over there and his adversaries haven’t killed me yet. But that is a danger.
His latest is a small piece
bushs peace effort imperils peace. Basically writing the PA and Abbas off as irrelevant in the peace process. This we can assume (given the timing) is a reflection learned through the Bush visit. So presumably that leaves the establishment to consider embracing Hamas or thinking time is on their side. Personally I think the establishment has lost the plot, is guided by decisions based on a system many thousands of years old, and is incapable to respond to any reality on the ground. Gone are the days of initiative, of dictating events.

There’s a war coming.

No one in Israel seems able to stop it. Whether there’s a piece of paper called a peace agreement or not. By Israel touting her appointed surrogate Abbas as the Palestinian’s leader. And by imprisoning and outlawing the party of the people’s will (Hamas). And not even mentioning how Arafat might have gone.

Today the Iranian PressTV is full of contradictory reports of tension on the Northern border. There is a build up of either Syrian or Israeli troops, and the consequent denials.

As Tony Karon points out: Mahmoud Abbas commands no forces currently fighting Israel, so, simple logic would dictate that the Palestinian entity with whom a truce will have to be negotiated will have to be Hamas. You know, like, duh!

So there is a war coming.

Because the Israelis wouldn’t allow themselves to show the required respect to Hamas and Hizbollah. And why? They will talk to them in private, but they are concerned not to confuse public opinion……..