Abbas: the quiet man in the business suit

MAHMOUD Abbas could hardly be more different from the man he seeks to replace: unlike Yasser Arafat, he likes to work in the shadows, shuns publicity, listens to advisers, deplores violence.

He is the quiet man in the business suit who stood for 40 years by the side of the flamboyant revolutionary in military fatigues and keffiye, whispering pragmatic advice into the ear of the stubborn ideologue.

But Abbas can be just as tough as Arafat on the core issues of the Palestinians’ future.