Recent events in the Middle East have evolved much like a political chess game; any move, especially one lacking serious thought or calculation, could jeopardise the region or the players, prematurely eliminating either contestant. This is the case nowadays in both Palestine and Egypt. Earth-shaking developments could affect the future of the countries and regional stability.

Mahmoud Abbas, President of the Palestine National Authority, is in charge of the Israeli-occupied West Bank while Hamas, led by Prime Minister Esmail Haniya, controls the Gaza Strip after winning elections there four years ago. These two leaders and Khalid Mesha’al, the popular powerhouse within Hamas, who has recently left Damascus and settled in Qatar, remain the movers and shakers within the Palestine movement despite the factionalism.

As evident, the ceasefire agreed to by Hamas and Israel in Cairo after an eight-day bloody conflict this month has, by most accounts, elevated the popularity of Hamas. This is the first time that Israel has failed to emerge as the unchallenged victor.

Consequently, Abbas, the long-time traditional Palestinian leader, faces a challenge. Having been virtually absent during the eight-day conflict and the ceasefire talks that followed, his popularity has seemingly dropped. But the aging Palestinian leader is now in New York where he is scheduled to call on the United Nations to grant an upgraded observer status and recognise a Palestine state in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and occupied east Jerusalem, all captured by Israel in the 1967 war. But Abbas’s persistent UN bid, much to the satisfaction of many a Palestinian, has energised his stance.

Leila Farsakh, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, believes that “the innovative element in Abbas’s UN bid is his attempt to internationalise the conflict, by bringing back the UN, and thereby shaking, if not ending US monopoly of the peace process”. She continued: “By so doing, Abbas is responding to popular outrage at [the Palestinian-Israeli] Oslo [peace accords] and the futility of negotiating with Israel while the occupation continues and settlements [colonies] expand.”

Israel and the Obama administration strongly oppose the UN move by Abbas or his insistence on prior conditions, namely Israel’s mandatory withdrawal from all the Occupied Territories where some 500,000 Israelis live illegally, before the resumption of any serious negotiations. Abbas is certain that the United Nations will sanction his request.

Egyptian President Mohammad Mursi, who is the first democratically elected Egyptian head of state in decades, is in a similarly precarious situation. Moreover, Muris, a former member of the Muslim Brotherhood which is now in virtual control of the Egyptian political scene, has won national, regional and international praise, especially from the Obama administration, for managing to negotiate a truce between Israel and Hamas. The conflict cost the lives of some 160 Palestinians, 30 of whom were children, and six Israelis, two of whom were soldiers.

Mursi, a former university professor at a Midwestern US university, appeared elated by the praise he received, especially from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who had gone to Cairo to help settle the Gaza war. His immediate step after the ceasefire and Clinton’s departure was a major power grab and freeing all his upcoming decisions from judicial review. His purpose, he claimed, was to protect the revolution that brought him to power after eliminating the discredited regime of Hosni Mubarak.

The new constitutional declaration that he pronounced gives him unrestricted, near-absolute power and immunity.

The new Egyptian ‘pharaoh’, as the liberal critics described Mursi, seemed unaware of the proverb, ‘the road to hell is paved with good intentions’.

His decision raised immediate concern and fear that autocracy was returning to Egypt. Wide national demonstrations and reoccupation of the famous Tahrir Square in Cairo where the anti-Mubarak protestors had camped overnight for several days, popped up once again.

Despite press reports that the conflict may be subsiding, it is not clear what the Egyptian president intends to do in the immediate future. His best decision would be to reassure his country that all will be well once the constitution is completed and approved by a popular vote and in the meantime he would abandon his sweeping new powers. Otherwise, Egypt is in for further chaos, if not more.