Peace Talks Circling the Drain — Flushed?

To the surprise of nobody, the Peace Process is lost at sea, somewhere near that Malaysian airliner.

There was a plot twist at the end, though.  Netanyahu the Likudnik was putting pressure on Mahmoud Abbas to extend the peace talks.  I don't know anybody who predicted this.  So maybe the Arabs do have the upper hand at this point.   We'll have to watch and see.

Abbas himself just turned 79 last week.  How many more years will he be running the PA?  And who's next?

The PA itself is apparently gone, though.  They've replaced it with a new Arab "State of Palestine".  The current agreements, are only between Israel and the PLO.  Abbas is also head of the PLO.  Will the PLO be dissolved too?

Abbas and the new fake Palestine will get all kinds of lovely paperwork from the UN, and they'll display it proudly and have high-level announcements, and meetings.  And then...   What?   A big strawberry from the Israelis.

The rubber hits the road when Abbas starts importing weapons 'Legally', probably into Gaza.  Israel will stop it.  Then what?  War?  More likely, Abbas will set up mutual defense treaties with a number of states that are already at war with Israel.  This could include Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria (ha!), and probably Iraq.   I foresee longer speeches.

They're also threatening to tie up Israel in the ICC.  At worst they can prevent some Israeli leaders from travelling to some parts of the world where they don't want to go anyway.  Britain and the US aren't likely to go along.

Maybe somebody will disband the UNRWA and make the new Palestine take in all the descendents of the refugees.  A fine kettle of fish for Abbas then.  He'll probably retire the next day.

Maybe that's it!  Netanyahu could have been planning this from the beginning.  Once there is a state of "Palestine", there's no excuse for having all those refugees.  Heck, Lebanon could just get rid of their problem by demanding the people in the UN camps be repatriated.  Let's keep this idea our secret for a while, until after Abbas has joined those 15 UN organizations.

If the new Palestine announces its intent to liberate the rest of Israel for the Arabs, I think it would be a declaration of war.  That plus a few rockets coming from Gaza might be enough to start the real thing.  But even the Big War in Europe started with a phony war for nearly a year.

On the other hand, Israel could ask for a do-over.  Israeli diplomats have just ended a strike and Israel hasn't been playing with a full team.

This whole thing could spiral out of control.  Or just be intercontinental flatulence.