Election call puts Abbas back at the head of Palestinian table

If Yasser Arafat was an impish uncle who seemed capable of setting off firecrackers to liven up a family dinner party, his successor as president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, is the droning, monotone guest who threatens to put everybody to sleep before dessert.

Yet it was Mr Abbas who tossed the firecracker that brought Palestinians to the edge of civil war for the first time since Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in the 1967 six day war. His call for new presidential and legislative elections - less than a year after polls put Hamas into power - touched off intra-Palestinian skirmishes when Hamas accused him of attempting a political coup.

In addition to random shooting, which Gaza has often seen in the past, fire was directed at leaders of the two contending camps, while senior intelligence officers on both sides were kidnapped and executed. The street rampaging was halted midweek after desperate calls for calm by Mr Abbas, leader of the Fatah faction, and prime minister Ismail Haniyeh, of Hamas.

But Gaza remains dangerously perched just above the abyss of civil war.

What was stunning about Mr Abbas' election call was that it came from a man who had built a career on non-confrontation. Locked into an impossible bind by Hamas' refusal to recognise Israel's right to exist and Israel's refusal to deal with a Palestinian regime dedicated to its demise, the 71-year-old hoped the Palestinian electorate would offer a way out by unseating Hamas.

To some, Mr Abbas' move was a desperate lunge that had no chance of succeeding, since the Hamas-dominated legislature was unlikely to dissolve itself and the Hamas-dominated civil service was unlikely to organise elections that Hamas claimed to be unconstitutional.