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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 16-Dec-06
In desperation gamble, Mahmoud Abbas calls for new Palestinian elections

Web Log - December, 2006

In desperation gamble, Mahmoud Abbas calls for new Palestinian elections

Hoping to end political deadlock and head off a Palestinian civil war, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responded to the incendiary events of the last few days by announcing his intention to call for new Presidential and Parliamentary elections, in a speech in Ramallah. The U.S. government welcomes this call.

What's the purpose of this call? Because of the desperate hope that Fatah will win both the Presidential and Parliamentary elections, creating a government that will recognize Israel and receive Western aid again.

President Abbas is supported by Western nations, including the U.S. and Europe, and heads Fatah. Hamas, considered a terrorist organization by Western nations, surprised everyone by winning the legislative elections in January. Western nations reacted by cutting off hundreds of millions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians, unless Hamas renounces violence and recognizes the existence of Israel, things that will happen when pigs fly.

Now that political differences between Fatah and Hamas have grown into escalating violence, and civil war seems near, Abbas is taking a desperate gamble that Fatah will be the big political winner.

I don't predict elections, since election results are chaotic events (in the sense of Chaos Theory), and so election results can be affected by even tiny, minor surprises.

But having said that, it's most likely that Hamas will win both sets of elections. Young, radical Palestinians, especially in the Gaza strip, are increasingly in control of what happens, much more so than in the near two years since Abbas won the last Presidential election. These young people aren't in love with Hamas, whom they consider to be too moderate, but they certainly won't vote for the old dinosaur Abbas.

Thus, the desperation call for elections is only likely to increase the militancy of the Palestians, and hasten the route to civil war. In fact, Hamas has already said that the call for elections is a coup, and threatened immediate further violence.

On Saturday evening, several hours after Abbas' speech, tens of thousands of supporters of Fatah and Hamas, respectively, demonstrated and clashed with one another, wounding five residents in the city of Rafah in Gaza.

Generational Dynamics predicts that the Mideast is headed for a new genocidal war, replaying the crisis war between Arabs and Jews of the 1940s. As I wrote in 2003, the disappearance of Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon would signal a generational change that would lead to a major conflagration within a few years, engulfing the entire region. This prediction has been trending true, and it now appears that a Palestinian civil war may be the first step on the road to that major regional crisis war. (16-Dec-06) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 16-Dec-06 In desperation gamble, Mahmoud Abbas calls for new Palestinian elections

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 16-Dec-06
In desperation gamble, Mahmoud Abbas calls for new Palestinian elections