February 4, 1998

JERUSALEM (AP) -- Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat told President
Clinton that his successor would be his deputy Mahmoud Abbas, according
to a report in a London magazine. 

"When my time will come I will be replaced by my brother Abu Mazen,"
Arafat reportedly told Clinton, referring to Abbas by his nom-de-guerre,
during their Jan. 22 meeting at the White House. 

The article in the Feb. 5 edition of the Foreign Report was made
available to The Associated Press Wednesday. The report could not be
immediately confirmed with Palestinian or U.S. officials. 

The succession issue has been a delicate one among Palestinians, whose
national movement has been led by the 68-year-old Arafat for three
decades. 

Many deem Arafat critical to the completion of the peace process because
only he has the clout to get Palestinians to accept a compromise deal
that might be palatable to Israel: a Palestinian state in only a small
part of the lands Palestinians have claimed. 

But the question has surfaced increasingly over the past year amid signs
that Arafat, whose administration is troubled by a stagnant peace
process with Israel and charges of corruption at home, might be having
health problems. 

The Palestinian leader, variously reported to be suffering from
Parkinson's disease and depression, has often been captured by TV
cameras looking pale, tired and glassy-eyed, his lower lip trembling and
his hands shaking. 

Arafat has dismissed talk of succession or his ill health as subversive
and has termed it "propaganda." 

Legally, succession is murky. 

As head of the PLO, Arafat took over the Palestinian Authority formed in
1994 and was elected to head it in 1996. He has refused to sign the
Palestinian Basic Law, a quasi-constitution, which calls for the
appointment of the speaker of the legislature -- a position now held by
Ahmed Qureia -- in the event of his death. 

In 1996, Arafat appointed Abbas to the No. 2 post in the PLO, and there
has been speculation that this meant he had been designated as
successor. But other aspirants include the chiefs of the Palestinian
security apparatus. 

Abbas, a 63-year-old lawyer, was a key figure in negotiating the initial
1993 Israel-PLO accord and signed it on behalf of the PLO. 

Abbas was 12 when the 1948 Arab-Israeli war erupted and his family left
their hometown of Safed in northern Israel to become refugees in Syria. 

In the 1960s, Abbas became a founder of Fatah, the PLO's main guerrilla
faction headed by Arafat. In the late 1970s, he earned a doctorate in
Israeli affairs at Moscow University. He moved to Tunis when the PLO
settled there in the 1980s. 

Abbas was one of the first Palestinian leaders to call for dialogue with
Israel.