This post is adapted from a comment I wrote below. I thought I'd drag it up here to the top (slightly edited) - no need let all that content go to waste, besides, typing out my response in that comment helped me think things through a bit.

In response to the item regarding Sharon's cold-shoulder to Abbas, TigerHawk's Jack comments:

Now, I understand these concerns and still, I was thinking along very similar lines. I almost always as a rule default to support for whatever Israeli elected leaders choose, but that doesn't mean you can't have an honest discussion of whether we think those choices are wise or not.

It will be interesting to watch the punditry for analysis. My feeling is that Sharon, as any democratic leader must do, is responding to this recent up-tick in violence and dead citizens, and this is his way of saying, "This is no joke this time. Mr. Abbas. It's time for you to make some decisions, as we did in our early days [see: Altalena] . You're going to have to take action. Just talking is not enough."

Maybe Sharon could stand back a bit more and show more patience, but on the other hand, what Israeli wants to volunteer to be the last man to die so Hamas can make a "point" and Abbas can breathe a few breaths? And haven't the Israelis really been quite patient for some time now? As an aside, note Roger Simon's comment on the story:

Now yes, you could view any response by Abbas as bowing to Israeli pressure. On the other hand, if they're not talking, Abbas can't be said to be doing Sharon's bidding - he must be acting on his own. Who knows, maybe the whole thing is a put-up?

I doubt that, though. I think it just means that dead Israelis mean serious action from Sharon - he's going to do what he needs to do as Israeli leader, and he's going to expect Abbas to do what he needs to do as Palestinian leader. Hopefully their paths will converge somewhere down the line, but that time clearly isn't quite here yet. I'm big on "responsibility." Sharon has his - and he has the things he can control - and Abbas has his - and the things he can control.

I do worry that the crossing closings will hurt average Arabs, and that will make it more difficult for Abbas to show the results everyone says he needs to get the grass-roots support to go after the terror gangs.

But you could also look at it this way, Abbas got some of his strongest support in Gaza (as Jonathan Edelstein comments below), where life has been the toughest due to the Intifada - a backlash against the terror groups. So now the terror groups are at it again, causing more misery, forcing closings and making Abbas's job - the man the people JUST elected and now they want to succeed - even more difficult. Should Abbas decide to start moving - consolidate the security forces and have them start acting against the terror groups - it's possible that this whole thing translate into him actually getting more grass-roots support than he might have had otherwise - if things were just continuing to grind on in neutral and everyone fell into the old game-playing patterns. One thing's for sure, Ariel Sharon is not afraid to shake things up, and why else is the Palestinian man on the street going to inconvenience himself supporting a crack-down, if life were going OK with the terrorists in operation? Better to have them blowing up Israelis and not their fellow Palestinians - as might happen if a Civil War errupts. Sharon needs to remove that choice. Saying, "Don't bother us, go kill Israelis" must no longer be available as a viable option.

That would be, of course, a rational response from a peace-craving populace, and assumes that large segments of their society's goals are similar to what we feel our own people would want in similar circumstances, but rational and peace-craving responses are not frequent responses around those parts.

The Palestinian Arabs and their new leaders are either going to come to grips with the fact that their fate is in their own hands and no one else's or they won't and they'll only have themselves to blame for their own misery.

Anyway, those are just a few of my thoughts at the moment. These will be interesting days ahead.