Comment: less than 24 hours after being sworn in as the new Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas was under criticism for failing to rein in violent Palestinian extremists.

HIZBULLAH HAS CLAIMED RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ATTACK that so drastically altered the balance between hope and despair. Within days of the suicide bombing that killed six Israeli civilians at a Gaza crossing point where food and other essential supplies move between Israel and the Occupied Territories, Prime Minister Sharon suspended all contact with Abbas and the Palestinian leadership, prompting international press reports that the honeymoon between Israel and the newly-elected Palestinian president was already over. Honeymoon? What honeymoon? These two had barely got up the aisle!

"Despite the change in the Palestinian leadership, we have yet to see them taking any action whatsoever to halt the terrorism," Sharon told his ministers. "The army and the security forces have been instructed to increase operational activity to stop terrorism and they will continue to do so without restrictions--I emphasis without restrictions--so long as the Palestinians don't lift a finger," he said.

Sharon's response to the first fatal attack after Mahmoud Abbas's election victory may have been made with the intention of spelling out to the Palestinians, and to his own electorate, that he was starting as he means to go on. However, at least some members of his new coalition government believe the prime minister acted somewhat hastily in freezing relations with Abbas. "I think we have to give him an opportunity to take control," said Shalom Simhom, the environment minister from the centre-left Labor Party.

Professor of political science at Israel's Bar-Ilan university, Gerald Steinber believes the Israeli prime minister is acting tactically. "Sharon has a very critical domestic audience, and he needs to persuade them that he has things under control. I think he is also telegraphing a message to Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian people that a major Israeli incursion into Gaza could take place," Professor Steinber observed.

This is a critical time for both men. And for the rest of the world somewhat akin to watching a dangerous high-wire act; we stare in wonderment as the artists perform their skills, gasp at every faltering step and remain continually anxious, almost sick with apprehension, at the lack of any safety net.

For make no mistake, this is make or break time. Actions taken now will determine the shape of events for years to come.

Mahmoud Abbas won a decisive election victory. With over 62% of the vote it is clear the majority of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank see him as their best hope. Elsewhere however, certain rejectionist factions are already going about the business of putting a spoke in the wheel of this democratically elected leader who holds out the best--perhaps the only--chance of reviving peace negotiations. If Abbas can bring these factions under control it would give Sharon and George Bush what they want and also serve to significantly boost his own standing at home and in much of the wider Arab world.

But Ariel Sharon must cut him some slack. There have been many mistakes made by both sides in the past but here, at last, is a time for hope and new beginnings, not a time to freeze relations but to work together in a spirit of cooperation, united against those who serve their own interests above those of any democratic electorate.

Israel's priority is a complete cessation of terrorism. Mahmoud Abbas has declared the Palestinians "ready for peace" and has gone on record as saying Intifada violence was a mistake. If Abbas is not Sharon's best bet for a full chapter in the book of world history (instead of, as at present, a couple of paragraphs identifying him with Sabra, Shatila and the Wall) I don't know who is.