From the Shadows to Center Stage

By Matt Rees/Ramallah

The camera bulbs had barely stopped flashing, but Mahmoud Abbas was already on the spot. After exchanging a photo-op handshake with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh last week, Abbas went into his first meeting with Sharon since Abbas' election as President of the Palestinian Authority. Sitting across a long oblong table in an airy conference room, Sharon reiterated to Abbas his demand that the Palestinians take immediate steps to disarm the militants of Hamas before Israel agrees to resume peace talks. "Wait, wait, give me a break," Abbas said, according to Israeli officials who attended the meeting. "I've only been in office a couple of weeks." Sharon showed no sympathy. "You've got to move faster," he said.

One month into his tenure, Abbas is beginning to realize that if he hopes to make progress toward peace, he can't afford to wait. With last week's declaration of a truce between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, relations between the two sides have reached their warmest level in years--owing in large part to Abbas' willingness to confront the violence that wreaked havoc on Palestinian society under Yasser Arafat. But Abbas is in an excruciating bind. While he needs to move fast to accommodate Israeli demands, he also risks reprisals from his own people that could cost him his job and very possibly his life. No sooner had Abbas agreed to a cease-fire last Tuesday than Palestinian militants staged two brazen attacks. First they fired mortars and rockets on Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip. Then 300 gunmen from Hamas and the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades staged an assault on the Saraya, the main prison and Palestinian Authority military base in Gaza City. In response, Abbas took his boldest step yet to assert his authority, firing at least 25 top security officials and going to Gaza to rebuke Hamas leaders in person. "If you run from a leaking roof," he told aides, "you'll end up with a flood."

The quick show of resolve was surprising to those accustomed to Abbas' scrupulous style. "He's Mr. Calculator every time he makes a move," says a senior Palestinian official. And yet, since taking over from Arafat, Abbas has shown a more daring side. He has impressed aides and foreign diplomats with his guts and discipline. A State Department official briefed on Abbas' meeting with Condoleezza Rice last week says the new Secretary of State "left there very convinced that [Abbas] was serious. He has a very clear understanding of what he's up against. He has a narrow window to prove himself." Abbas' fortunes--and prospects for peace--will ultimately hinge on whether he can persuade Sharon to make compromises of his own, like releasing long-serving prisoners who murdered Israelis. It's telling that while Israeli officials praised Abbas for sticking to the agenda at Sharm el-Sheikh--in contrast to Arafat's diversionary tactics--Abbas told a senior Fatah official that he found Sharon too rigid. "We are different personalities," he said. "I can't be a block of ice."

For someone often derided for his passivity, Abbas, 69, has also been willing to mix it up. Born in Safed, a town now part of Israel, he grew up in Damascus after his family fled when the Jewish state was founded in 1948. As a young member of Fatah, Arafat's faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.), he made his name as a fund raiser while avoiding involvement in the group's terrorist attacks. He was among the first Fatah leaders to build bridges to Israeli peace campaigners and in 1977 issued a declaration in favor of a two-state solution, a break from P.L.O. doctrine, which called for the eradication of the Jewish state. Abbas' ties with Israeli officials made him a key Palestinian architect of the secret negotiations that produced the Oslo peace accord in 1993. Even Sharon, who denounced that deal, saw in Abbas a man he could do business with. Seven years ago, Sharon, who was then Infrastructure Minister, invited Abbas to Sycamores Farm, his ranch in the Negev desert. Abbas was the first P.L.O. official Sharon ever met.

But Abbas has also invited suspicion. As a student at the Institute of Oriental Studies in Moscow, he turned in a dissertation, published as a book in Jordan in 1984, that accused the postwar Zionist movement of inflating the number of Jewish Holocaust victims for political gain. While many Israelis say the book amounts to a denial of the Holocaust, Abbas' defenders point to the passage in which Abbas calls the Holocaust a "crime that the civilized world ... and humanity cannot accept."

Like few other Palestinian politicians, Abbas staked out his independence from Arafat, condemning the intifadeh and pushing for reform of the corruption-plagued Palestinian Authority. In March 2003, at the behest of the Bush Administration, Arafat appointed Abbas as Prime Minister. Six months later, Abbas quit because Arafat wouldn't cede control of the Palestinian military. Shortly before Abbas' resignation, a friend asked Abbas when he expected things to improve for the Palestinians. Abbas gestured toward Arafat's office. "When that man in there changes out of his khaki uniform," he said.

That moment has arrived--sooner, perhaps, than even he expected. But despite a promising start, Abbas still has to prove to Sharon and the U.S. that he can be as firm with the militants as he was with Arafat. Close aides say Abbas doesn't want to start a civil war, but he's ready to force Hamas to respect the authority of his government. "He's a very patient person," says Rafik Natsha, a Palestinian lawmaker and close friend. "He swallows his anger." He may have to let it out soon. --With reporting by Jamil Hamad/ Ramallah, Amany Radwan/Sharm el-Sheikh and Elaine Shannon/Washington

With reporting by Jamil Hamad/ Ramallah; Amany Radwan/Sharm el-Sheikh; Elaine Shannon/Washington