Mahmoud Abbas will not seek re-election as Palestinian Authority President in January.

Saeb Erekat, the virtual public face of Palestinian participation in the Oslo process, is calling it quits on the two-state solution.

I always believed that Obama never had any illusions about where he could get with his push for a settlement freeze, that it was just a smokescreen for him to buy time.  Now that everyone is saying that Hillary’s gaffes on her recent trip to the region mark the end of Obama’s push for a peace agreement, not a few are being so bold as to say that this signifies the bitter end of the two-state solution itself, such as the always sharp Steve Walt.

In short, if Abbas is stepping down, and the leading negotiator on the Palestinian side is saying all is lost, there can be no doubt that no Fatah candidate, and indeed no internal candidate for the leadership of Fatah, will get anywhere without calling for a unity government with Hamas and the demand for a single, binational state.

Having attended the J Street Conference last week, it is clear to me that a decent-enough number of self-appointed American Jewish “leadership” see the writing on the wall, but the shock to the larger American establishment, and perhaps even the whole international system, is going to be pretty damn serious.  May God have mercy on us all.

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