Words often mean the opposite of what they appear to mean in the Middle East. When Jordan's King Abdullah demanded a speedy solution to the Israel-Palestine issue to quell the outbreak of multiple civil wars in the region, he meant the precise opposite: the Arab world has something more pressing on its mind than the plight of the Palestinians. The emergence of an Iranian threat to Saudi Arabia makes Palestine the odd man out. The Palestine problem has dropped to the bottom of the Arab priority list, and the fate of the Palestinians is to become cannon fodder for proxy wars.
By the same token, King Abdullah's warning of multiple civil wars meant the opposite of what it appeared to. What formerly were civil wars (or prospective civil wars) in Iraq, Lebanon and Palestine have become three fronts in a Sunni-Shi'ite war, in which the local contestants are mere proxies. This is obvious in Lebanon, and becoming so in Palestine, particularly after Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh's meeting with Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad in Qatar on Saturday.
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