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Will Abbas's Desperate Gambit Trigger a Third Intifada?

(Washington Post) Jackson Diehl - Over the past four months Mahmoud Abbas has dug himself into a very deep hole in the Palestinian West Bank. Next month, he will try to blast himself out with what he hopes will be a controlled explosion - mass demonstrations by Palestinians that, he supposes, will neither turn against his regime nor get out of hand. Abbas's desperate gambit may turn out to be a dud. It might be called off at the last minute. But it also may be the trigger for another violent upheaval in the Arab Middle East - and one that changes the course of the poorly named "Arab Spring." In theory, this will move countries to vote for Palestinian statehood, make Israel look isolated, attract the attention of Arab satellite channels and create at least the illusion of a triumph when Third World votes push the meaningless General Assembly resolution over the top. It's not hard to imagine what could go wrong in a "third intifada." The embattled dictatorship of Bashar al-Assad in Syria could get a saving break as Arab attention focused on a new Israeli-Palestinian fight. Syria and Iran could promote new marches on Israel's borders from the Golan Heights and Lebanon. Extremists in Egypt could use anger against Israel to whip up support in crucial elections scheduled for November. And so on.
2011-08-22 00:00:00
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