Mahmoud Abbas accepts position as Palestinian prime minister

JERUSALEM -- Pragmatist and moderate Mahmoud Abbas accepted the position of Palestinian prime minister Wednesday in the first real promise of ending the bloody Israeli-Palestinian deadlock of 30 months.

Abbas, known as Abu Mazen, accepted the position a day after the parliament approved creating the post, said Nabil Abu Rdeneh, an aide to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.

Abbas easily could fail. He is up against a wily Arafat reluctant to share power, has little grass-roots support and will depend to some extent on the goodwill of hawkish Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon.

Arafat formally asked the 67-year-old Abbas on Wednesday to serve as prime minister and form a new Cabinet. The two have known each other for four decades.

In the 1960s, they co-founded Fatah, the Palestinian faction that has led the struggle for statehood.

The reclusive Abbas has never challenged Arafat in public, but their relationship often has been stormy. They have argued in private and Abbas sometimes would withdraw in anger for extended periods, waiting for Arafat to offer reconciliation.

The tensions became apparent at a Tuesday meeting of Fatah leaders, participants said. Arafat groused that U.S. officials offered to receive Abbas in Washington while continuing to boycott him -- the elected Palestinian leader.

Abbas tried to reassure Arafat, saying he would never betray him and reminding him of their shared history, according to those present.

The Palestinian parliament assigned considerable powers to the future prime minister, giving him the right to form a Cabinet and supervise the ministers -- tasks once the sole preserve of Arafat.

Arafat not sidelined

The Palestinian leader tried at the last minute to diminish the new job, seeking a final say over Cabinet appointments, but was rebuffed by legislators Tuesday -- the clearest sign yet that Palestinians no longer are willing to tolerate one-man rule.

However, Arafat is far from being sidelined -- as the United States and Israel hope will be the outcome of installing a prime minister. Arafat retains control over the security forces and a final say over future peace talks.

In this complex relationship, much will depend on Abbas' assertiveness, charisma and political guile -- traits he is not known for.

Commentators noted that in the past, the patrician Abbas has chosen to remain in the background and avoid confrontation with Arafat.

Abbas will have to overcome the personal issues and "not sulk and accept the challenges of governing," said Mahdi Abdel Hadi, head of the Jerusalem-based think tank Passia.

The new prime minister will be under pressure to move quickly to ease the hardships of 3 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In the past 30 months, Israeli travel bans and military strikes against suspected militants have paralyzed daily life and brought the Palestinian economy to collapse.

Israel will have to ease restrictions, withdraw from Palestinian towns and stop targeted killings of militants if it wants Abbas to succeed in bringing about a truce, said Ali Jarbawi, political scientist at the West Bank's Bir Zeit University.

"If he (Abbas) cannot deliver on basic things, his post will wither away," Jarbawi said.

Sharon, who met once with Abbas while prime minister, says he is ready to meet with Palestinian leaders other than Arafat, whom he has branded an arch-terrorist. However, Sharon insists Israel will keep hunting militants who have killed hundreds of Israelis in shootings and bombings.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Ron Prosor said Wednesday that Israel welcomes the appointment of Abbas, but it is up to him to take the first step.

"Israel, like every country in the world, is looking forward to seeing performance by Abu Mazen, both in stopping terrorism and implementing reforms in the Palestinian Authority," Prosor said.

Former Israeli peace negotiator Yossi Beilin said Sharon must engage Abbas and seize "maybe the last chance to negotiate with a pragmatic, secular leader on the Palestinian side," or face the possibility of Islamic militants taking over.

Despite his pragmatism, Abbas would not be an easy negotiating partner for Israel, said Beilin, who first met him at the 1993 White House signing ceremony of a breakthrough pact of mutual recognition between Israel and the PLO.

Beilin noted that Abbas has staked out tough positions on the "right of return" of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to Israel and on a Palestinian claim to east Jerusalem as a capital. He was among the hawks in the Palestinian delegation at the failed Mideast peace summit at Camp David in 2000.

However, Abbas also has called the armed uprising against Israel a historic mistake -- while stopping short of pressuring Arafat to rein in the militants.

Abbas' first test as prime minister will be forming a new Cabinet -- a balancing act between appeasing the old guard around Arafat and bringing in reform-minded technocrats, as expected by international mediators.

Even if Abbas in the end fails to carry out major policy changes, his appointment -- and parliament's successful battle to keep the prime minister's powers intact -- appear to be a turning point for the Palestinians.

"We are in the process of moving from revolutionary thinking to state-building," Abdel Hadi said. "We are witnessing the end of Arafat's era."