The retirement of Mahmoud Abbas, the President of Palestinian National Authority, is an expression of frustration at the lack of progress toward a two-state solution, but it may permit the emergence of a new generation of Palestinian leaders. In the short term, however, it may well cause a further deterioration in Israeli-Palestinian relations and play into the hands of the Hamas rulers of Gaza.

Mr. Abbas, who is 74 years old, belongs to the original leadership group of Fatah, the core of the Palestine Liberation Organization, and lived as an exile for more than four decades after the Arab-Israeli war of 1948. In effect, his whole adult life has been in high-level Middle East politics, most of it neither in Israel or the occupied territories. There may be some benefit from a successor who has always lived in and with the facts on the ground. But there are at least two possible next presidents from Mr. Abbas's own generation, Ahmed Qurei and Nabil Shaath.

The Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyah, is a respected economist, who has spent much of his life abroad. The PA's chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, and Nasser al-Qudwa, a diplomat who is Yasser Arafat's nephew, are prospects as well.

The most troubling and yet possibly more promising potential presidential candidates emerged as young leaders in the first, stone-throwing intifada of 1987, and may have a "street cred" that could eventually help them win support for a peace settlement. One of them, Marwan Barghouti, aged 50, is a prisoner in an Israeli jail, having been convicted of five murders and sentenced to five life sentences. In jail, he was instrumental in a "national conciliation document" of prisoners from four Palestinian parties, including Hamas, which, at least by one interpretation, implicitly recognized Israel's right to statehood.

Another of the same generation is Mohammed Dahlan, aged 48, formerly known as the Fatah strongman in Gaza, where for a time he took stern measures against Hamas. On the other hand, he is rumoured to have been involved in corruption.

Even if Mr. Abbas's announced retirement turns out to be a tactical move, sooner or later the Palestinians will need to choose between realistic former militants and grey, solid administrators.

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