Word: arafats
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...cracking down on Hamas, Islamic Jihad and all other groups who have taken up arms against Israel, making them the target of a "war on terror" akin to America's own. This is more than a little farfetched - indeed, it's an idea cultivated in no small part by Arafat himself, in the days when Israel and the U.S. were quite happy to accept him as an authoritarian strongman who would keep a tight rein rather than demand democratic accountability from...
...simply a non-starter for Abbas; instead he plans to draw them into the political process and, on the basis of a consensus of national principles that he plans to negotiate with them in Cairo, to win their agreement for a cease-fire. Israel had rejected this approach while Arafat was alive, and it would be something of a retreat for Sharon to accept it now. But Abbas has given no sign he'd be willing to do things the way Israel and the U.S. would like them done...
...mind. Indeed, the Israeli prime minister resurrected his political career and eventually won the prime minister's job - an outcome unthinkable even in his own party until it became inevitable following the onset of the September 2000 intifada - by leading an aggressive campaign against the Oslo process. Yasser Arafat was widely pilloried in the U.S. for rejecting what was offered at Camp David by then Prime Minister Ehud Barak. It is worth noting, however, that Sharon was, if anything, far more vehement in his rejection of the same deal...
...Some Israeli observers fear that Israel will face new U.S. pressure for concessions as a result of Abbas's election, and with good reason - the simple fact is that the U.S. position on Arafat had become untenable given its difficulties in Iraq and elsewhere in the Muslim world. Having demonized Arafat as the problem, the Israelis will now likely have to deal with the fact that his passing allows the U.S. to recalibrate its own positions in line with its wider interests in the region. President Bush responded to Abbas's election by immediately inviting the new Palestinian leader...
...irony is that while Abbas will almost certainly be more democratic than Arafat, that won't necessarily hasten the peace process. In fact, it could even do the opposite: Arafat had used his longstanding executive authority as unchallenged head of a national liberation movement to force through compromises in the Oslo agreement that would not likely have been accepted by his electorate, and later to order crackdowns on Hamas when their actions jeopardized his own plans...