| Extracted from a longer Debka article... |
...A certain amount of jostling for position greeted the first hours after his departure. The first to step forward were the former and current Palestinian prime ministers Mahmoud Abbas and Ahmed Qureia. Abbas is Arafat's Number 2 in the PLO executive; Qureia, the senior Palestinian Authority official. A third was Salim Zaanoun, head of the Palestinian Legislative Council. A fourth was the ambitious Mohammed Dahlan, former Gaza Strip strongman. This foursome can do no more than try and keep things running pro tem until Arafat's fate is settled one way or another. Without his seal of approval - which was not granted - its members' standing is not very solid. Biding their time are the real Palestinian heavyweights, together with the al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades created by Arafat for the suicide campaign against Israel, the radical Hamas and the Jihad Islami. The latter two have already staked a claim to a share in the post-Arafat "unified national government." The battle for the succession will not begin as long as the Palestinian leader is alive. Until then, president Jacques Chirac, an avowed friend of the "Palestinian struggle," will be firmly by his side and likely to take a hand in the choices.
The rising men at this moment, according to DEBKAfile's Palestinian sources, are Arafat's closest advisers and his top terrorist masterminds: Hanni al-Hassan, Saher Habash, Azzam Muhammad, Nabil Abu Rdeina, Ramsi Roh and Force 17 commander Faisal Abu Serah. This group, together with extremist Farouk Kadoumi, the self-exiled deputy chairman of the Fatah executive, will remain in Paris as long as Arafat is confined to hospital. They will try run Palestinian Authority business from the French capital. Claiming they are relaying orders from Arafat, they will gradually erode the authority of the Abu Mazan-Abu Ala clique. These candidates do not auger well for the hopes harbored by many Israelis of Arafat's eclipse automatically opening the way for non-violent Palestinian peace negotiators to step forward — or even a downturn in terrorist attacks. Quite the contrary, the contest promises to jar the entire region and unleash fresh terrorist energy.