U.S. and Arafat

The next epiphany that must be reached is that any threat to Arafat that stops short of a total loss of power will not produce the desired result. It would have been nice if something less than a threat to Arafat's regime would have worked, but that is clearly not the case. As long as the U.S. and Israel keep that threat explicitly off the table, Arafat has a palpable incentive to find new, more spectacular ways to murder Israelis. If Bush wants quiet he must tell Arafat if the current attacks continue, let alone escalate, the U.S. will not necessitate to remove its umbrella from his regime.

-- The Jerusalem Post, Jerusalem