"Abbas offers the Palestinian people a real opportunity for peace and prosperity. Its looks like militant zealots want to steal that away from them. Without Abbas, the Middle East will devolve into chaos and it will be thirty years before another chance for peace between the Palestinians and the Israelis rises once again."

So optimistic. Palestine doesn't have another 30 years. If zealots steal this away it's going to a death sprial for the Palestinians. I mean if Abbas dies from a heart attack something it's not a big deal, but if these terrorists kill him, what kind of leader would replace him? Probably none, then it ruled only by various terrorist factions, and makes the current situation look like a picnic. Meanwhile Israel bails from the whole situation and with no world leader who will want to put any troops in there, nor any money. In less than 10 years of this and you could have wasteland of theives fighting over valueless bones with everyone else finding a better place to live. And if the Palestinian can't build a country, the land by default returns to Israel. You would think Israel wins and Palestine loses would provide enough incentive for those maniac terrorists to pause in their murderous intent, but they also brainless.
And unlike Afghanistan which had lost something like half it's population, Palestine is easier to move away from. With the rest of the middle east fighting terrorists and moving away from depostic rule. Lebanon and other countries are going to look mighty green compared the terrorist devolved hellhole.

"One would hope that our friends in the Arab world would want to do everything they can to assist Abbas to stifle this violent militancy. "

This is most likely mostly the Bin Ladin type nutjobs, rather than due to Arab country or Iran backed factions. The Palestines have to get involved and seriously back Abbas or they are going to lose their country. If they do this then Egypt and other Arab countries can help in terms of security and money in the longer term.