RAMALLAH, West Bank — The mountains of wrecked cars and rubble have been scooped up and hauled away. Gone, too, is the half-ruined wing of a building that served as a hide-out for Palestinian gunmen. In their place, a new governmental complex is taking shape.
The overhaul of the battle-scarred compound where Yasser Arafat spent his final years, confined by Israel, is perhaps the most obvious sign of the contrasts in leadership style between the new Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, and the iconic guerrilla leader who preceded him.
For Arafat, the debris carried propaganda value as an emblem of Israel's military actions while acting as a crude barrier against further incursions. For Abbas, the cleanup symbolizes a break from the past and a new governing ethic.
More than six months after Arafat's death, Abbas is seeking to create a greater sense of order in the Palestinian government, with limited success. Dressed in his somber suits, Abbas remains a staid and somewhat aloof counterpoint to the charismatic Arafat, who preferred a checkered head scarf and khaki military-style jacket.
As heir to Arafat's Fatah organization, Abbas was elected Palestinian Authority president in January. Since then, he has worked cautiously to reform the often chaotic Palestinian bureaucracy, hobbled by corruption and years of one-man rule and conflict with Israel.
Under pressure from European leaders and President Bush, who will meet with Abbas in Washington on Thursday, the Palestinian leader reorganized the security forces by gathering a dozen overlapping police agencies into three and placing them under a new interior minister. He has ordered more than 1,000 senior officers to retire to bring in new blood, while overseeing final plans to restructure the civil service system.
No Patron-in-Chief
Abbas has veered from Arafat's practices in other ways. Arafat used to answer personal pleas for help -- such as requests for jobs or help paying hospital bills -- by leaving written responses at a pickup window at the compound. Abbas has refused the role of patron-in-chief, making it clear such requests are to go through government channels.
Abbas "is different in his political approach. He looks at it a lot more as a state than a revolution," said Muhannad Abdel Hamid, who writes a column in the Al Ayyam newspaper in Ramallah. "He is not repeating Arafat's mistakes. He's trying to avoid them."
