Abbas goes to the wire over crackdown on Hamas

Hopes of progress in the Middle East peace process were hanging in the balance last night with the power struggle between Yasser Arafat and the new Palestinian Prime Minister, Mahmoud Abbas, nearing its end.

Tony Blair was one of several international leaders who telephoned Mr Arafat to warn him to back down or face dire consequences.

Mr Abbas, who is also known as Abu Mazen, had a midnight deadline last night to agree a compromise with Mr Arafat in their ferocious row over the Prime Minister's proposed cabinet. Unless the two men manage to reach a last-minute deal, Mr Abbas is likely to face a stark choice: either to present his cabinet to the Palestinian parliament today – where without Mr Arafat's support it faces almost certain rejection – or to resign.

At stake is the "road-map" peace plan, drawn up by the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations, which calls for an independent Palestinian state within three years. The US President, George Bush, has promised to release it once Mr Abbas's cabinet is confirmed by the Palestinian parliament. If Mr Abbas resigns, the future of the peace plan will be thrown into doubt. But he and Mr Arafat are believed not to have spoken since Saturday, when Mr Abbas stormed out of a meeting and rejected a proposed compromise.

The threats and warnings that have been flooding in to Mr Arafat's telephone have been described as "brutal". The Egyptian President, Hosni Mubarak, reportedly told Mr Arafat explicitly that his future would be in jeopardy if he refused to back down. When the EU representative, Miguel Angel Moratinos, told him Mr Abbas was the only candidate for Prime Minister the EU would accept, Mr Arafat reportedly screamed back at him.

One of those who spoke with the Palestinian leader was believed to have told him starkly that if he did not back down he was "playing into Sharon's hands and no one will be able to lift a finger on his behalf when Sharon expels him or orders his assassination".

The standard wisdom, from international diplomats and the Israelis, was that Mr Arafat was trying to cling to power, objecting to a cabinet in which his cronies were demoted and his enemies given power.

But Palestinian politicians and observers said yesterday that the truth was not so simple: Mr Arafat's desire to cling to power is part of the problem – this is not the first time he has mortgaged the Palestinians' future to his own.

But others said they feared Mr Abbas could be leading them towards "civil war". Hatem abd al-Qader, a prominent member of the Palestinian parliament and of Mr Arafat's Fatah movement, said there was parliamentary opposition to Mr Abbas' proposed cabinet because he wanted to take on Hamas, the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and the other militant groups.

This is exactly what Israel and America want Mr Abbas to do. Hamas and the al-Aqsa Brigades have been responsible for the deaths of hundreds of civilians in suicide bombings and other attacks. One requirement of the road-map is that the Palestinian Authority reins in the militants and stops suicide bombings.

Much of Mr Arafat's opposition has centred on the figure of Mohammed Dahlan, a former security chief of Gaza Strip. Mr Arafat fell out with Mr Dahlan, and he is now seen as an enemy of Mr Arafat. But he is also seen as someone who will take on the militants.

Mr abd al-Qader believes Palestinian society cannot sustain such a crackdown. "There will be a civil war. The civil war is more destructive on Palestinians than the Israeli army raids," he said.

Last night, Mr Abbas was still refusing to compromise. When Mr Arafat informally approached Ahmed Qurei', the parliament's Speaker who is known to be liked by America and the Israelis, in the past few days to ask him to take on the Prime Minister's job instead, so the story goes, Mr Qurei' refused. "I've already had one heart attack. I don't want another," he said.