In his article published in the Wall Street Journal on Sept. 19, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas was candid and straight to the point, expressing uncertainty that a comprehensive and lasting peace agreement could be achieved with Israel by the end of this year. Nevertheless, as he declared in New York Wednesday, he still believes in the possibility of a two-state solution and is standing by it.

In his article, Abbas outlined the parameters and the basis for achieving a just, viable, and lasting peace agreement, an agreement that will allow "the Israeli and Palestinian peoples to live as neighbors in two independent states."

What Abbas is essentially talking about is a free and independent Palestinian state on all the land occupied by Israel since June 1967, with Arab East Jerusalem as its capital, and a just, agreed upon solution for the Palestinian refugees based on UN Resolution 194.

According to several public opinion polls conducted in the occupied Palestinian territories in the last few months, Abbas enjoyed and still enjoys the support of the majority of the Palestinian public, regardless of Israel's continuous violations such as its daily raids, check points, and settlement activities, designed, amongst other things, to discredit the Palestinian National Authority before its people. Despite these actions, Salam Fayyad, appointed by Abbas to head the Palestinian government in the wake of Hamas' coup in Gaza, has proved a competent prime minister, having been able to transform the situation in the West Bank from one of economic stagnation and near-anarchy to a semblance of law and order, and improve the economic situation.

The international community's involvement in the peace process through practical and financial assistance to Palestinian institutions and the struggling Palestinian economy has helped the Palestinian government. This involvement was and remains essential in order to stabilize and improve the economic situation as well as to keep Palestinian government institutions running. On its own, however, this international involvement will not be of any sustained benefit in the medium- or long-run in the absence of a political settlement.

But this is entirely in Israel's hands - Israel can choose to take the steps that can make peace possible, because she is the party occupying the Palestinian territory. Israel refuses to implement UN resolutions. Israel is the party building and maintaining illegal Jewish settlements on occupied Palestinian land. And Israel is the party that refuses to withdraw from occupied Arab East Jerusalem.

Israel's occupation of Palestinian land and holy places is also the cause of Arab and Muslim enmity toward the West. All attempts by Israeli right-wing media and Jewish lobbyists in the US, assisted by influential Evangelist Christians, to shift the cause of enmity by Muslims toward the West to other reasons is not correct and will not succeed.

On the contrary, ending the Israeli occupation and achieving a peace agreement between Israel and Palestine will go a long way toward easing relations and removing hostility between the Muslim East, and the West.

As the Arab peace initiative proves, Abbas, the PNA and the Palestinian public, together with all the Arab states, are willing, ready, and able to make peace with Israel, subject to Israeli acceptance of this Initiative in its entirety.

The question that needs to be asked is how is it possible that after hundreds of negotiating hours between the Palestinian and Israeli sides, dozens of summit meetings between the leaders of both peoples, intensive involvement of the US administration at its highest levels backed by the Middle East Quartet, no progress has been achieved. Something is surely wrong, Israel is still manipulating, the US is not serious, and the quartet, as a report issued by international NGO's in the third week of September 09 stated, is not doing what needs to be done to make sure that UN resolutions are implemented and justice in the Middle East is served.

As things stand now, we are at another crossroads. Ehud Olmert has resigned from his office, and Tzipi Livni has been assigned the task of forming a new Israeli government. Given Livni's short time span in Israeli politics, her expected rise to the post of prime minister will be no small achievement. Right-wing politicians supported by like-minded Israeli journalists appear to be envious of her "achievements", and have been attacking her since she was assigned the responsibility of heading the Israeli negotiations team.

Once prime minister, Livni will have to face the reality. The manner in which she will address the situation on the ground in the occupied Palestinian territory, including the Arab East Jerusalem, as well as the way she will conduct herself in negotiations with the Palestinians after she becomes the prime minister, will be a determining factor that will define which way the peace process will be going.

In short, the time available for Livni to make peace with the Palestinian leadership is not long. What is needed from Livni in the very short time is to curb the behavior of Israeli occupation soldiers, to remove the apartheid system that exists in the West Bank, and to allow normal free movement for the people. If she is serious about peace, she has to freeze Jewish settlement construction and implement the road map peace plan.

She needs to allow free access for Palestinians to their holy sites in Arab East Jerusalem, to dismantle the apartheid wall, and to prepare the Israeli public, physically and psychologically, for a withdrawal back to pre-1967 Green Line borders.

- Walid Awad is a Palestinian journalist based in Arab East Jerusalem.