Spoiling The Postelection Mood

By Matt Rees Jamil Hamad; Aharon Klein; Elaine Shannon

The honeymoon didn't last long. After Mahmoud Abbas was elected Palestinian President on Jan. 9, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon placed a congratulatory call to Yasser Arafat's successor and, according to Israeli and Palestinian officials, said he was "looking forward to meeting with you to discuss issues." Abbas responded that they would meet soon, "God willing." Four days later, the optimism was shattered, at least temporarily, when Palestinian militants killed six Israelis at a freight crossing point between Israel and the Gaza Strip. Sharon suspended ties with Abbas the next day.

For both leaders, the crisis presents an early measure of whether their mutual respect and shared reputation for pragmatism can bring an end to the ruinous conflict between their peoples. There appears to be a reservoir of goodwill between the men that should eventually bring them together to discuss ways to overcome the violence. Sharon has long treated Abbas, the first P.L.O. member he ever agreed to meet, with a level of respect he never showed Arafat. At peace talks in Wye River, Md., in 1998, Sharon refused to shake Arafat's hand and pointedly ignored him--but he chatted amicably with Abbas on a sun deck there. In 2003, Sharon invited Abbas to Jerusalem and stood alongside him and President George W. Bush at a summit in Aqaba, Jordan. "Their personalities are very similar," says Aaron David Miller, a former U.S. peace negotiator. "They're both very courtly, exceedingly polite and soft-spoken, very measured in their words and tone."

Two weeks ago, Sharon privately told a U.S. visitor that he liked Abbas, though he added that he hadn't yet seen any attempt by the new Palestinian chief to rein in the terrorist groups. Sharon's bottom line for a return to peace talks is for Abbas to confront the Islamists of Hamas and the gunmen of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and halt the rocket and mortar attacks on Israeli towns near the Gaza Strip. The persistence of such attacks could jeopardize Sharon's plans to evacuate all Israeli settlers from Gaza as early as this summer, which is viewed by U.S. officials as a critical first step toward peace. "Abbas doesn't have 100 days of grace. He doesn't even have 100 seconds," says Amos Gilad, an influential Israeli Defense Ministry policymaker. Top Palestinian officials say the attack at the Gaza checkpoint showed that extremists intend to use violence to bury any chance Abbas has of diplomatic progress. --By Matt Rees. With reporting by Jamil Hamad, Aharon Klein and Elaine Shannon