You would have thought that the second-order Palestinian leadership - peace oriented negotiation types, like Saeb Erakat - would have jumped at the chance to meet with the notoriously level-headed Colin Powell.

That's what Ariel Sharon thought, too.

When he isolated Arafat in his compound, cutting him off from his top leadership, he hoped to provoke a split within the Palestinian Authority leadership.

His scenario, which he had, no doubt, bought from a graduate in Political Science, went something like this.

In the Palestinian Authority, the younger generation of leaders is willing to compromise core demands for a state - any state. The elder generation consists of still-unreformed terrorists and is unlikely to use negotiation as anything but a strategic feint in their war. So, if you get rid of the terrorists and pound the heck out of everybody else, the younger Palestinians will give in.

Sharon believes this, and he's gotten Bush to believe it. He's walled in Arafat, and he's gotten the Americans to negotiate now - to waltz to the table while Arafat is prevented by tanks from being there.

Unfortunately, this did not work. So far, the Palestinian Authority leadership has opted, rightly, to let Colin Powell look like a fool and a hypocrite in the eyes of the world for negotiating with Arafat's jailers.

Bush says Arafat has failed his people. Evidently, he thinks that his words can depose Arafat. To me, this is incredible. I think about Ramallah and Jerusalem - all of the foreign governments, agencies, and international organizations that lived in these towns. In Europe trade with Palestine was beginning. Palestine was opening casinos for tourists from Europe and the Arab world, and Arafat was in control of it. It will take more than words to depose him.

Bush's condemnation of Arafat, and Powell's upcoming diplomatic farce, betray not only Bush's stupiditiy but the muddle of his policy towards Palestine.

Right now, the world sees Bush standing with Sharon. His words are largely irrelevant. In action, Bush is ignoring Arafat and allowing Sharon to prosecute the most brutal attack on the refugee camps and occupied territories in the last 50 years.

On the other hand, he's spoken in support of a Palestinian state and he did send Zinni to meet with Arafat. But this seems like little more than a political gesture, especially in the eyes of world leaders who have met with Arafat in the palace that is now a bombed out cage.

If Bush wants to depose Arafat, he should do so openly, and accept the burden of disdain that is due him. If he wants to pick a leader for Palestine, one who speaks nice English and wears a hip modified suit, like Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, he should go in and do it himself.