On the deal of the century and violence - Amos Harel in Haaretz:

'Throughout the entire last week, the West Bank has been gradually heating up as a result of the presentation of the Trump peace plan, and the Israeli declarations of intentions to annex parts of the West Bank. On Wednesday, Palestinians threw large numbers of Molotov cocktails at IDF forces operating in the area of Birzeit, near Ramallah, and a 17-year-old Palestinian was killed in Hebron after he threw a Molotov cocktail at the soldiers, they said. Regardless, the army thought it was urgent to conduct an operation Wednesday night to demolish the home of a terrorist, one of the members of the cell that murdered Rabbi Raziel Shevach two years ago– a home which was already demolished once. The operation was not halted even though while the forces were on their way to Jenin pictures from a drone showed hundreds of Palestinians organizing for a confrontation with the soldiers near the house.'

(...)

'Added to all this are the effects of “the deal of the century.” The militant line taken by the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, has also inspired his rivals at home. If the PA is once again leading the struggle, Hamas cannot remain apathetic – for two reasons: First, Sinwar does not want to be viewed by the Palestinian public as someone who has reconciled with Israel in return for improved conditions, while Abbas is firmly sticking to his rejectionism. Second, it seems as though an opportunity has been created for Hamas. Abbas held an unusual telephone conversation with Haniyeh and is willing to talk about coordinating a joint struggle, which could lead in the future to talks over holding Palestinian elections. This would provide an opportunity for Hamas to return to the West Bank through the back door – while at the same time, to finally bury the peace negotiations track with Israel – the same channel that Yasser Arafat and the PLO have led since the Oslo Accords in 1993, and which Hamas has fiercely opposed the entire time.'

Read the article here.

No, not a third intifada, but the peace plan of you-know-who may indeed, as I stated before, cause so much unrest and frustration that the prolonged period of calm between Hamas and Israel that was foreseen by the Israeli military only a few weeks ago appears to be now out of reach. Of course, it would be too much honor to only blame Trump for this mess, but in the Middle East, especially in the Middle East, a small provocation presented as a peace plan might be enough to cause a fire.

In the meantime this peace plan is in the rest of the world already as forgotten as peace with Korea, peace with Iran et cetera. The attention of the American electorate and its leader is extremely limited. Needless to say, this is not only an American phenomenon.