OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, 11 May 2003 — At a closed-door meeting of political activists in the Gaza Strip last fall, during a period of repeated Palestinian suicide bombings and attacks against Israelis, Mahmoud Abbas, then the No. 2 official in the Palestine Liberation Organization, voiced unusual criticism of the militant groups carrying out the attacks.

They had turned a popular uprising into an armed conflict, he said, leading to the “complete destruction of everything we built.’’

A decade earlier, after he signed the Oslo peace accords as the Palestinians’ chief negotiator with Israel, Abbas became so frustrated at the authoritarian ways of his boss, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, that he withdrew from active politics and didn’t speak to Arafat for months, according to colleagues and news accounts at the time.

These two episodes shed light on the contradictory impulses of Abbas, the new Palestinian prime minister who has spent decades working behind the scenes of Palestinian politics and is now being cast into the most public and confrontational role of his career. Abbas, 68, popularly known as Abu Mazen, is facing conflicting expectations and pressures at the outset of another diplomatic initiative by the United States and others to end 31 months of violence between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and President Bush have expressed hope that the ascension of Abbas to the new office will enhance chances for negotiation by diluting Arafat’s power. This weekend, Secretary of State Colin Powell will try to relaunch peace talks by meeting with Sharon and Abbas, but not Arafat.

Abbas made it clear, even before he took over as prime minister late last month, that he believed Palestinians made a major error when they turned to suicide bombings and other armed attacks on Israelis in their frustration with Israel’s continued occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. In large measure, this stand was what made him attractive to Sharon and Bush.

But a cross section of his associates say Abbas remains under pressure from a defiant Arafat, who has been chafing at the efforts to marginalize him. Abbas has a personality that isn’t as volcanic as Arafat’s, they say. But he isn’t as flexible as the United States and others might want him to be on broader issues, particularly concerning Palestinians’ right to a state, and he’s less likely to try to countermand Arafat than they might like, they say.

“Nobody who is really informed about the situation in the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian street will say Abu Mazen is in power instead of Yasser Arafat,’’ said Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli Arab politician who worked closely with Abbas during previous peace efforts. He said that in recent days Abbas has told him and others: “Yasser Arafat is my president. He nominated me. He can nominate others. I respect his presidency and his position as the symbol for the Palestinian people.’’

“He’s a nonpolitical politician,’’ said Yossi Beilin, who has spent countless days as Abbas’s counterpart in every major Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiation of the past decade. “He doesn’t have elbows. He’s nonconfrontational.’’

But Beilin added, “For those who believe Arafat is extremist and here (Abbas) is a moderate Palestinian it will be easy to make peace with, forget it.’’

Arafat was pushed into accepting a prime minister by international mediators as well as other Palestinian leaders eager to improve relations with the United States. He has fought some of Abbas’s most basic requests for change.

In return for promotions for three of his longtime political associates within the new Cabinet, Arafat agreed to allow Abbas to appoint his own security minister, one of the most critical positions. But in recent days Arafat has balked at Abbas’s efforts to transfer most authority for security operations to his appointee.

Abbas didn’t grant a request for an interview, but told reporters from Palestinian newspapers this week that “Differences of viewpoints occur constantly, and even over simple issues,’’ between him and Arafat and other Palestinian officials. He added, however, that overall, he considers his working relationship with Arafat to be “excellent.’’

Over the years, Abbas has developed a pattern of temporarily walking away from situations he found too frustrating, rather than engaging in fierce battle, according to those who have worked with him, making some colleagues wonder whether he will stick with the current job if matters become too confrontational.

When President Bill Clinton sequestered Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators on the wooded grounds of the Camp David presidential retreat three years ago, Abbas, one of the Palestinians’ main negotiators, left during one of the most intense periods to attend his son’s wedding in the West Bank city of Ramallah. He was the only participant, other than Clinton himself, the president allowed to leave the compound. But it wasn’t Abbas’s departure that troubled some of his partners.

According to Beilin, US and Israeli participants were baffled by what they called his apparent “diffidence’’ to the entire process. “You could immediately see it in his eyes,’’ said Beilin, who negotiated for Israel at Camp David.

In his years of working with Abbas, Beilin said: “If you had disputes, he would go to Morocco or Qatar or Jordan. Sometimes he would go to Moscow. He would be incommunicado. I couldn’t reach him. ... He would disappear.’’

Several times during discussions involving Arafat and international mediators over the new prime minister’s position, Abbas reportedly threatened to quit the process and not accept the nomination even if offered.

In his book about the Oslo peace accords, “Through Secret Channels,’’ Abbas conceded he used the threat to resign as head of the Palestinian negotiating team as a ploy to spur floundering negotiations. Abbas also made clear in his book that he delighted in the covert process of the Oslo accords that kept US officials, Israeli intelligence agencies and the world’s news media in the dark during nine months of clandestine meetings between Palestinians and Israelis in Norway. Abbas said he managed the smallest details to guarantee the secrecy of the meetings, including passing out cash to the Palestinian participants and telling them to make airplane reservations that ensured none of them would cross paths in the same airports to or from the meetings.

Associates of Abbas said they worry that a man who’s so much more comfortable in the erudite atmosphere of policymaking than in the rowdy, unpredictable world of personal politics could jeopardize his chances for success in his new, more public position. “He’s never worked gaining support from the people,’’ said one prominent member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.