I was looking at it from Israel's point of view, not America's. Obviously, as you correctly point out, the U.S. has made a long-term, high-level decision, through several administrations, to treat Arafat as the official head of the Palestinians, with all the diplomatic immunity and forced respect that this implies. Whether I think this is a good idea is more or less irrelevant. Bush has already been dinged by the essential inconsistency of treating Arafat like a statesman while putting bin Laden on the Top Most Wanted list, but there is little he can do about it.

In fact, I believe the only reason Arafat isn't dogfood right now is because America has put the "kiss of the Good Witch of the North" on his forehead, putting him off-limits to Israel. The spectacle of Israel tearing his compound down around Arafat's ears in furious frustration while carefully avoiding any injury to him was almost amusing.