The Middle East's Failed Leaders
No one can condone the loss of a single civilian life on either side, but we need to realize
that the situation has essentially become asymmetric warfare rather than Palestinian
terrorism and Israeli counterterrorism. Each side has escalated the violence using the
methods available to it. For the Palestinians, this is suicide bombing and smuggled arms.
For Israel, it is tanks and attack helicopters. In both cases, civilians die, hatreds grow
and the level and sophistication of the fighting increases.

Facing these realities goes against the grain of American domestic politics and against
an international climate in which the United States takes the side of Israel while Europe
and Arab moderates back the Palestinians. This dynamic has to change if America is to
have an effective role in brokering a peace.

It seems clear now that any move toward a cease-fire and peace settlement will have
to be politically imposed from the outside on two sets of failed leaders and the influential
people who support them at home. The Israel of Mr. Sharon and Mr. Netanyahu is not
the peacemaking Israel of Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak. The United States must openly
and constantly condemn every intensification of the conflict by either side when civilians
die.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/03/22/opinion/22CORD.html