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Ill at Ease as Candidate, Abbas Attempts to Work the Crowds
(Baltimore Sun) The several thousand people listening Abbas in Kalkilya last week offered only polite applause. When egged on by campaign workers, they shouted his name and sang old Fatah anthems. Arafat used to come alive in front of adoring crowds; Abbas seems to cower. Edward Abington, a former U.S. consul-general in Jerusalem and a registered lobbyist in Washington for the Palestinian Authority, said Abbas' campaign platform should come as no surprise. "Those are Palestinian positions, not Arafat's positions," he said. "It is a mistake to think that because Arafat is dead that there is going to be sudden change in the Palestinian views."