Who's the No. 1Palestinian Now?
As President Bush immerses himself in the Middle East, Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat are jostling for the title

Mahmoud Abbas and Yasser Arafat are two sulky guys. When Arafat wanted to bring his wife Suha to the White House for the signing of the 1993 peace agreement with Israel, Abbas, one of the main Palestinian negotiators, objected to the presence of the Palestinian first lady, widely regarded within Arafat's circle as an interloper. Suha stayed home and Abbas attended the Rose Garden ceremony with President Bill Clinton, but on the plane to Washington, according to two top officials of the Palestine Liberation Organization (P.L.O.), Arafat fumed all the way. The incident, says an Arafat aide, broke the three-decade bond between the Palestinian leader and his No. 2 at the P.L.O.; they haven't trusted one another since, says the aide.

As Abbas, now the Palestinian Prime Minister, prepares for a summit with U.S. President George Bush, Arafat has entered what may prove to be his most significant sulk yet. Bush wants more than a reaffirmation of their commitment to his road map for peace in the Middle East; he is expected to demand a timetable for progress and genuine action on the ground. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon last week signaled that he is willing, but Abbas, more commonly known as Abu Mazen, may emerge as the weak link.

The emergence of Abbas as Prime Minister has put even greater distance between the two old allies. The idea of creating the new post arose out of U.S. and Israeli demands that Arafat's power be diminished. Arafat tried to block it but ultimately could not face down the power of the U.S. When the Fatah central committee voted on whether to nominate Abbas for Prime Minister, the tally was 16 to 1. The only vote against was cast by Arafat, who was so angry at the result that, according to senior Fatah officials, he refused to speak to anyone–even his bodyguards–for two days.

To succeed as Prime Minister, Abbas must not only survive Arafat's subversions but also win concessions from Sharon. He hopes to achieve the latter goal by reducing the violence against Israelis. To do that, he's working to persuade Hamas, the militant Islamic group, to observe a truce with Israel.

In a meeting of his Likud Party's parliamentary faction, Sharon said the Israeli "occupation" of the West Bank and Gaza Strip couldn't continue indefinitely. Israeli right-wingers were outraged that Sharon should be the first Prime Minister to refer to the country's presence in those areas as an "occupation." The attorney general advised that the official terminology should be "disputed territories." But Palestinians welcomed Sharon's candor.

As for Abbas, he's handling his foxy former boss carefully. After his three-hour meeting with Sharon last week, he went straight to Ramallah to report the details to Arafat. The next day, Arafat asserted his relevance by calling a meeting of the P.L.O.'s executive committee to discuss an Abbas-Sharon parley. Abbas usually attends such functions. This time, in the tradition of sulks and boycotts, he did not.

—from TIME, June 9, 2003

Questions

1. What concessions does Mahmoud Abbas hope to make in upcoming peace negotiations?

2. What concessions has Ariel Sharon made?