A precious chance of peace or a poisoned chalice?

MAHMOUD ABBAS wears suits. Except for a well-cropped band of hair on his upper lip, he’s always clean-shaven.

And the belt around his waist holds up his pants, not a holster. So when the designated Palestinian prime minister went to battle last week with Yasser Arafat, the master of guerrilla politics and brinkmanship, even some of his advisers were betting against him.

Mr Arafat raked through Mr Abbas' list of cabinet appointees, demanding to weed out anyone who ever criticised him. But Mr Abbas, a 68-year-old academic and Mr Arafat's lifelong deputy, quietly stood firm. In the end, it was a letter of resignation Mr Abbas drafted that put him on top. "He was willing to walk away, and that's a very strong card," said Nabil Shaath, who will serve as foreign minister in Mr Abbas' cabinet.

The US and Europe have high hopes. Mr Abbas is the first Palestinian leader in 34 years to seriously encroach on Mr Arafat's power. He has been sharply critical of the violence Palestinians have perpetrated in the last 31 months. And his soft demeanour couldn't contrast more with Mr Arafat's theatrics. Here, finally, is someone Israel and Washington can deal with. But many Palestinians still wonder whether Mr Arafat, who remains president of the Palestinian Authority and chairman of the PLO, will once again outmanoeuvre his rivals.

Consider the job Mr Abbas has "won". To ease the suffering of his people, he'll have to crack down on Islamic fundamentalists who are well-armed and popular. He will have to stop attacks on Israel, such as the suicide bombing that killed a security guard at a train station last week, while negotiating with a hawkish Israeli government.

All the while, Mr Arafat will try to ensure he remains the ultimate authority. Mr Abbas, better known as Abu Mazen, has enthusiastic backing from the US. But even that may become a liability: he risks being dubbed an American stooge. "He's a really nice guy, but is he up for the task?" asks one European diplomat. "I'm not sure".

Mr Abbas has always favoured a different approach to that of Mr Arafat. Though the two founded Fatah together in the late 1950s, Mr Abbas remained in the background, building Palestinian institutions and later heading the PLO's international-relations department.

When Mr Arafat insisted on packing a pistol at his first address in the UN General Assembly in 1974, Mr Abbas quietly sought out leftist Israelis for talks. After Mr Arafat sided with Saddam Hussein in the 1991 Gulf War, it was Mr Abbas who travelled to Saudi Arabia to mend fences.

"He's a very modest person, extremely low key," says Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli cabinet minister who logged hundreds of negotiating hours with Mr Abbas (the two men helped draft the 1993 Oslo accords). Yet the same unruffled manner that has made him well-liked among foreign officials has also made him seem aloof to his own people an impression enhanced by allegations that Mr Abbas has profited financially from his position as a top PLO official.

Mr Abbas is hoping he can persuade Hamas to stop bombings and shootings for a year.

"He's looking for a political settlement with Hamas," says Nabil Amr, who will also serve in Mr Abbas' cabinet. If he gets it, Israel will come under pressure to comply with the "road map", a plan for peace and Palestinian statehood that Washington is expected to unveil this week.

Israelis hope Mr Abbas will use Muhammad Dahlan, the new state minister for security affairs, to disarm Hamas by force. Mr Dahlan launched an effective crackdown in Gaza when suicide bombings rocked Israel seven years ago, but that was when Palestinian security forces were at the height of their powers. Today much of Mr Arafat's infrastructure has been destroyed, and even the Israeli Army has failed to wipe out Hamas.

Even if Mr Abbas does cut a deal with Hamas, it isn't clear how willing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be to remove troops or settlements from the occupied areas. The road map's first phase calls for an "unconditional cessation of violence" by Palestinians and an Israeli pullout from areas it occupied since the fighting started.

Mr Sharon wants Palestinians to go first, a demand some believe will scuttle the plan. "This has to be done in tandem," says one Western diplomat. "Palestinians must see immediately that by ending violence, they get certain benefits. Otherwise the road map becomes road kill."

One benefit might be a quick prisoner release. Israeli jails are stuffed, and freeing some prisoners more than 1,000 are held without trial could be Mr Sharon's gesture to the new Palestinian prime minister. Some US officials believe Israel should even consider releasing high-profile prisoners, like uprising leader Marwan Barghouti. For now, at least, Israeli officials rule out his release.

Nor will they lift the siege on Mr Arafat, who's been confined to his battered Ramallah compound for 16 months. Mr Arafat tried to have his release included in the deal on Abbas' cabinet. He also asked mediator Omar Suleiman, who heads Egyptian intelligence, to guarantee his access to PLO funds, according to a top Palestinian security official. Mr Arafat may have lost that demand as well. But the Palestinian leader is a wily survivor. For Mr Abbas, that probably means last week's battle was the first of many.

(c) 2003, Newsweek Inc