A senior Palestinian politician and member of Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization affiliated with the Palestinian Authority (PA) of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, has warned of the possibility of a third Palestinian uprising or Intifada.
Kadoura Fares, a leader of the Palestinian peace coalition, demanded at a conference in Tel Aviv on the Geneva Initiative last week, that Abbas or Abu Mazen as he is better known, halt peace talks with Israel citing a lack of progress on the ground.
The Geneva Initiative or Accord was launched in the Swiss city in 2003 by Israeli and Palestinian negotiators and outlines the basis of a permanent settlement to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
Despite intensive and ongoing negotiations between Israel and the PA, Israel continues to expropriate Palestinian land in the West Bank for the purpose of enlarging illegal Israeli settlements and building new ones.
The Palestinians further complain that the Jewish state is refusing to address core issues such as the borders of a future Palestinian state, East Jerusalem as its capital, security, the return of refugees, water resources and security.
The Palestinian security establishment has bowed to Israeli pressure to close Hamas affiliated charities and businesses and arrested and detained hundreds of Hamas men, thereby earning the trust of Israel's security services.
Moreover, Palestinian officials now openly admit that they have been getting assistance, both militarily and financially, from the Americans and the Israelis.
However, there are splits in Fatah between its security and political branches.
The political wing of Fatah and the younger generation of its activists see the Palestinian security establishment as acting as Israel's proxy militia while getting almost nothing in return.
Prominent activists such as Hussam Khader of the Balata refugee camp, near Nablus in the northern West Bank, and a key figure in both Intifadas warn of impending confrontation.
Younger Fatah members, people once active in the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, who are currently in Palestinian custody because they have not yet received amnesty from Israel – also warn of an approaching confrontation with Israel.
As a consequence the political wing has called for reconciliation between the two major factions of Palestinian politics, Hamas and Fatah.
They argue that it is illogical for Abu Mazen to keep negotiating with Israel as they are not prepared to settle for a piecemeal Bantustan with limited autonomy but demand an independent Palestinian state.
Currently the PA has only limited control over the West Bank due to the ubiquitous Israeli checkpoints, ring roads and settlements which break the territory up into a political patchwork quilt, while Hamas has almost full control over the entire Gaza strip.
In the interim the fragile and shaky truce between Hamas and Israel continues to teeter along but analysts predict it is only a matter of time before hostilities again break out as Israel continues to enforce the blockade of Gaza with little interruption.
A significant easing of the closure is one of Hamas' key demands and was also one of the conditions of the ceasefire.
While Palestinians see the possibility of another uprising on the back of the stalled talks, Israeli intelligence officials do not. They are of the belief that the Palestinian population in the West Bank is too exhausted from repeated Israeli military raids and the poor economic conditions on the ground to resort to a popular uprising.
But these same intelligence experts have warned of future attacks by frustrated Palestinians unconnected with any of the resistance organizations, carrying out attacks of their own volition, within the borders of Israel proper.
And continued acts of violation and provocation against Palestinian communities by Israeli settlers in the West Bank could be the spark for a possible third uprising. So while the status quo at present for Israel looks fairly calm, there is no guarantee of this remaining the case in the future.
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