It's pretty clear there is no way Arafat can control every last suicidal palestian extremist. To expect otherwise is unreasonable. What is clear is that Arafat shoudl being do all in his power to stop them and until 9/11 I'm not sure he was. His past rhetoric has certainly not helped the situation. Since 9/11 however I believe he realizes he can no longer play both sides of field.

Israel on the other hand cannot solve this problem without officailly recognizing the palestian state that exists de facto already in gaza and the west bank. The reality on the ground can't be changed without "ethnic cleansing" and the price for that would be more than Israel would be willing to pay. The world would not tolerate it.

This is an ugly situation. I wish the current administration would exert the effort Clinton did to resolve this. Ultimately his efforts failed but no president, not even Carter, tried harder to understand and resolve the Arab/Israeli situation. There wasn't one square acre of the west bank Clinton didn't know the history, importance and geography of in detail. In all honesty this happen very late in his administration but Clinton actually brought them very close to a final agreement before Sharon's visit to the Jeruselem wall, and the subsequent palestianian response, destroyed the entire process. Unfortunately for Bush and Co., I don't think they can wait until late in their tenure to move on this. They've tried to pretend it's not there for a year now. It's not working so far.