His Fatah movement, based in the West Bank, is deeply split from Hamas, which governs Gaza.
BBC: Palestinian UN vote will hurt peace, says Israel's Regev
For instance, they always say that the Fatah movement wants Hamas to recognize Israel.
Mr Arafat, backed by most of his Fatah movement, insists the forces must remain answerable to himself.
Mr Abbas does have majority support for the road map among his Fatah movement, say Palestinian sources.
Their elected president, Mahmoud Abbas of the chiefly secular Fatah movement, has called early presidential and legislative elections.
But some people in Mr Abbas's own Fatah movement have raised objections too, saying it has been set up illegally and without due consultation.
We do not know if the mainstream Fatah movement will be forced to form a governing coalition with the more radical (and often rejectionist) Hamas movement.
Meanwhile, Palestinians have expressed anger at the issue of a warrant for the arrest of Marwan Barghouti, the head of Mr Arafat's Fatah movement in the West Bank, by an Israeli court.
There was little patience in Israel for Mr Arafat's assertion that he would set up a commission of inquiry to investigate whether members of his Fatah movement had been responsible for the attack.
But it would be even worse, say Palestinians in Mr Arafat's Fatah movement, for the PA to try to stagger on, with various forces fighting to fill the vast hole left by Mr Arafat.
Mr Barghouti - a senior figure in Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement and one of the most prominent Palestinians ever held by Israel - was captured in mid-April during the offensive in the West Bank.
He and his Fatah movement, which governs the West Bank, are now under greater pressure to proceed with a risky diplomatic course of action - asking the United Nations for an upgrade to the Palestinians' status.
Most Palestinian analysts put his outburst down to the fact that the declaration exposed just how narrow his base of support has become: it consists mainly of his Fatah movement and, as the statement showed, not even all its members.
There is a new interior minister (Hani al-Hassan, a long-time loyalist from Mr Arafat's Fatah movement) but the bulk of the old ministers remain in place, including two top negotiators who had been high on the parliament's wish-list for demotion.
In the mid-1950s, Arafat and several Palestinian Arab associates formed a movement that became known as Fatah, an organization dedicated to reclaiming Palestine for the Palestinians.
Some think Israel may take a new tack with Hamas, encouraging moderates in the movement as it did with Fatah, rather than trying to isolate it, which has strengthened the extremists.
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