Abbas's departure leaves Mideast road map hanging

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat - a man said to relish a crisis - must surely be in his element.

Some senior Palestinian leaders are blaming him, in part, for the resignation on Saturday of Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, whom Mr. Arafat appointed to the post just four months ago. And Israel is declaring more pointedly than ever before its intention to expel Arafat from the Palestinian territories.

"Arafat's expulsion is an inevitable result after years of involvement in terrorism," Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom told Israel Radio Sunday, adding his voice to those of nearly a dozen other Cabinet members.

On Saturday, Israel again demonstrated its willingness to act against Palestinian political figures, this time dropping a 550-lb. bomb on a Gaza City apartment in an apparent attempt to kill Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of the Islamic Resistance Movement, and other members of the organization. No one was killed in the strike, but Hamas, as the movement is known, vowed revenge.

Hamas has been responsible for suicide attacks that have killed hundreds of Israeli civilians in recent years, and the Israeli government says it is committed to a strategy of assassinating or arresting its leaders. "They are marked for death," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said in remarks published Sunday in the Israeli mass-circulation daily Yediot Ahronot.

One way in which Arafat might avert a return to exile would be to find a Palestinian official with moderate credentials like those of Mr. Abbas to take the premiership.

One such figure is Ahmed Qureia, speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, who is now "the most likely candidate for the position," says Hussein Sheikh, a senior leader of Fatah, the political movement that Arafat heads.

Even though Arafat is considered a tight-spot escape artist, some Palestinians are skeptical that their leader can finesse his way out of this crisis. "He will not find any plausible figure who will accept [the] job" of prime minister, says Jamal Showbaki, a minister in Abbas's Cabinet.

One senior Palestinian security official, an ally of Abbas who spoke on condition of anonymity, says the PA president must accept limits.

"We want to have Arafat as an executive president but without absolute power," this official says. "We need the prime minister to have authority."

But Arafat remains disinclined to cede such authority. Abbas "got all the power he needed," says Nabil Abu Rudeineh, an Arafat aide.

"The problem is with the Israelis and the Americans who worked hard to not give him a chance to succeed," he adds.

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