According to al Jazeera, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has called for early elections
The Palestine Liberation Organisation has given Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, approval to hold new elections, a high-stakes gamble meant to sideline Hamas but also likely to raise factional tensions.
Hamas, which won parliament elections last year, immediately threatened to derail any new vote.
Abbas took over the Palestinian authority under emergency measures after a year of Fatah-Hamas violence in Gaza culminated in an armed Hamas takeover of all government buildings a month ago. The emergency measures clause of the Palestinian Basic Law requires him to re-ratify his emergency government every 30 (or 45?) days until such time as new elections can be held. This is a step in the right direction.
Hamas justifies it's opposition to elections and threats to "derail" them (with guns?) by saying:
The decisions were adopted by consensus. Mahmoud Zahar, a Hamas leader, said the group would try to derail elections.
"The Palestinian people - and Hamas is a part of the people - will not allow early elections to create results that America approves of," he said in Gaza City.
As much as dislike our own domestic religious extremists, at least they didn't threaten to derail elections in 2006 when it became clear they would lose, under the pretense that "It would create results that al Qaeda approves of".
On the Israeli front, new Defense Minister Ehud Barak has continued to climb in the polls to just behind Netanyahu. (sorry, no cite). If we could have some early elections there as well in a few months and if he continues his rise, we could reach a situation where we have governments on both sides prepared to negotiate for the first time since 1994 or so.