The Palestinian leadership has sworn before all it holds sacred to wipe every last trace of Israel off the face of the earth. Israel takes issue with this position. American presidents have been trying to deal with this for decades. What do you want Bush to do that has not been tried? I'm sure we are all open for suggestions.

Face it, the Palestinian people have been nothing but cannon fodder for the political ambitions of their Arab neighbors. Under any normal circumstances, the refugee camps would have been absorbed generations ago into Jordan, Egypt, Syria, and other nations with similar cultures. They have been deliberately kept in place to provide useful idiots to wrap dynamite around and throw at Israeli guns. Meanwhile, the Arab leaders who have kept the Palestinians "in their place" drive their limos, fly their luxury private 747s, build their palaces, and spit in the eye of the United States, whose oil technology is the only reason they are not still living in tents. Oh, wait. They do stop spitting long enough to wail for help when one of their neighbors starts making invasion noises.

The world is full of peoples who have been at each other's throats for centuries. I'm not sure it's our job to stop it when we or our interests are not directly threatened.

My suggestion. Go over there, and give them all--on both sides--this message:

"You people are a waste of oxygen. You haven't built anything, produced anything, created anything to make the rest of the world glad you are here. Every effort has been to destroy. Okay, that's it. We're going home. You want to kill each other, fine. Have fun. Kill yourselves, kill each other, kill your children. When you are all done, and every last one of you is finally dead, we will come into the empty ruins, build luxury tourist hotels and fast-food stands on your bones, and sell souvenir ash trays made from your bleached skulls. No one will ever know you were here except historians, and no one will miss you any more than we miss the inhabitants of Carthage. Frankly, we just don't give a damn anymore."

If nothing else, this will make them band up together against us. If not, well, there are always the luxury hotels.