It’s hard to muster any enthusiasm for Abbas’ election as I can’t see him as anything but a transitional figure who, like Arafat, is beholden to too many radicals in the Palestinian camp. His campaign was built on the usual anti-Israeli rhetoric so don’t expect him to disarm Al-Aqsa and Hamas anytime soon. On the contrary, it will be business as usual on the West Bank and in Gaza for the foreseeable future. Abbas is not the moderate that many believe him to be, and if he is, the people that engineered his mandate certainly wouldn’t let him act on any reasonable instincts he might have.

Still, I do think that it is within his grasp to at least change some of the domestic Palestinian dynamics by breaking with the corrupt mismanagement that characterized Arafat’s rule. That could be a very first and tentative step on a long road to peace between Israel and Palestinians. But it is too long for Abbas to travel that road; he’s got too much baggage for it. An interim figure, that’s all.

UPDATE I: Interesting piece on the spirit of Arafat and the inability to enforce by Efraim Karsh here.

UPDATE II: Abbas has been invited to the White House, a significant move.