While Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is being embraced by the wonks in Washington, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat finds himself under house arrest in his headquarters in Ramallah.

This strange situation underlines the importance of having a superpower and a superior PR machine "the American media" as your spin stenographer.

You can do away with human rights and still earn a glossy write-up. Sharon’s fourth trip to Washington in less than a year is a show of strength to his archenemy who has been denied an audience with Bush on numerous occasions.

In effect Sharon is saying, "Look at me, Arafat, I can get invited to Washington anytime, talk Bush into making decisions about your future, but you cannot even move around in your own land without my consent."

Sharon is expected to ask Bush to exert pressure on Iran, a country the American President scandalously cited as being part of an "axis of evil". But Sharon’s main goal is to goad Bush into severing ties with Arafat. Taxation without representation? How un-American. "Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was scheduled to meet Thursday with U.S. President George Bush on how to bring to an end to violence in the Middle East," reported CNN.

Portraying this meeting as a coming together of minds to chalk out a Mideast peace plan is simplistic if not misleading.

How can Bush and Sharon be trusted to find a fair solution to the humanitarian crisis facing millions of Palestinians without engaging the Palestinian leader?

Historical precedent suggests, however, that Sharon will get what he wants.

Bush looked the other way when Sharon called on Arafat to curb the violent elements in Palestinian-controlled areas while Israel concurrently destroyed Palestinian police stations and security apparatus.

American officials and the media spun the dubious strategy of destroying Palestinian infrastructure as Israel’s War on Terror, with several news outlets headlining the coverage, "Israel Strikes Back".

Colin Powell went on record calling Israel a democracy that "has a right to do what it pleases".

When you hear illogic like this, you get a sense of why Patrick Buchanan famously dubbed Congress "Israeli-occupied territory." Clearly, the American-Israeli ploy is to delay the implementation of clear-cut and long-standing U.N. resolutions, which call on Israel to withdraw from Palestinian areas and return to pre-1967 boundaries.

To date the U.S. has vetoed every U.N. resolution critical of Israel.

From demands that Israel cease settlements in occupied territories to a Palestinian call for U.N. Observers force in West Bank and Gaza, the U.S. has been the only country to block efforts towards peace.

In late December 2001, a few weeks after Bush dangled his vision for an independent Palestine, the U.S. again vetoed two non-binding anti-Israel Mideast resolutions in an emergency session of the General Assembly.

The resolution asked both sides to start "comprehensive and immediate" implementation of the Mitchell report's recommendations.

The assembly also demanded the immediate end to all acts of violence, provocation and destruction and condemned all acts of terror, particularly those targeting civilians, as well as all extra-judicial executions, excessive use of force, and widespread destruction of properties.

Noting America’s negative votes, the Permanent Palestinian Observer to the United Nations, Nasser Al-Kidwa, wondered aloud to the Assembly if the resolutions might change the situation on the ground.

"If this does not happen, as has been the case with the Palestinian situation over the years, it then underlines in a glaring way the obscene situation of one state (Israel) that considers itself above the law and publicly expresses its contempt for U.N. resolutions with the cover and automatic protection by the superpower of the world," the United States, he said.

"This is the situation, which needs to be tackled and brought to an end, not the international will nor meetings and resolutions of the U.N. organs."

Al-Kidwa went on to state that the United States' Security Council vetoes in support of Israel constitute "a huge problem that affects negatively the situation in the Middle East, the credibility of the council and its ability to move effectively in different places."

This is the time for Washington to display leadership.

It is either an even-handed partner in peace or it is an unconditional Israeli ally, which means it should excuse itself as a negotiator.

There is certainly enough conflict of interest to justify seeking an American alternative.

Washington cannot continue to funnel billions of dollars in cash, weaponry, and technology to one side in the conflict and claim to desire a just settlement for both parties.

The last 50 years have been a litany of support for the occupying force, while the victims have been depicted as rogues whose leader does not even deserve an audience with the American President.

In this tableau, what is the carrot for the Palestinians? Why should they believe the official American warble of peace for all people?

Shortly after September 11, Bush dangled the carrot˜he raised the tantalizing specter of an independent Palestine˜and just as quickly dashed hope by green-lighting Israeli military attacks and endorsing Sharon’s criteria of "100% calm" before starting the implementation of the Mitchell’s Report.

Was Bush merely playing to the Muslim-Arab galleries as he sought their support in his war on Afghanistan?

Ask him today about his vision for Palestinian statehood and he makes Sharon-like sounds.

He talks up universal freedom, but balks at freedom for Palestinians. It is time to reframe the crisis accurately--Arafat and the Palestinian suffering are not irrelevant, Bush and Sharon are not peacemakers. Sharon ranks up there with Osama bin Laden and Hitler.

His ordering a cold-blooded massacre by Christian militias of defenseless civilians in the Lebanese camps of Sabra and Shatila 19 years ago has earned him a trial in a Belgium court.

In modern day Palestine, he masterminds crimes transparently and with the tacit support of Washington.

When there is a lull in the violence, he kills a Palestinian leader or two, spins it as a targeted assassination, and reoccupies more territory under the pretext of quelling future terrorist threats.

Robert Malley, who was special assistant for Israeli-Arab affairs under President Clinton, says, "By his actions and not without help from the Palestinians, Mr. Sharon has done all in his power to make it unfeasible for them to meet their obligation.

" Even moderate Israelis acknowledge Sharon is leading the country to an abyss. In a recent open letter to Sharon’s foreign minister Shimon Peres, Ha'aretz journalist Gideon Levy wrote "The government of which you are a senior member, the foreign minister, is no longer the government of last resort; this government is a government of crime.

Your silence and inaction can no longer be justified by any excuse. You continue to serve in a government with blood on its hands, whose outstretched hand is still busy killing and jailing and humiliating, and you are a partner to all of its deeds.

Just as the Taliban foreign minister is a part of the Taliban regime, you are a part of the Sharon regime."

He goes on to say, "You were always forgiven for all this - but no longer.

Someone who is a partner in a government that deliberately sabotages every Palestinian effort to achieve quiet, that utterly humiliates their leaders, for whom vengeance is the sole motivating force, which cynically exploits the world's post-September 11 blindness and obtuseness to do as it pleases - can no longer be forgiven.

You have imprisoned an entire people for over a year with a degree of cruelty unprecedented in the history of Israeli occupation.

Your government is leaving them with no semblance of normal life. No going to the market, no going to work, no going to school, no visiting a sick uncle. Nothing. No going anywhere and no coming back from anywhere.

No day or night. Danger lurks everywhere, and everywhere there is another checkpoint choking off life."

Levy understands the end result of continued oppression can only be disastrous. "The cycle of violence and hatred has far from reached its peak. All the injustices and evil perpetrated against the Palestinians will eventually blow up in our faces.

A people that is abused this way for years will explode one day in a terrible fury, even worse than we have seen so far."

So true.

Oppressed young men fanatical in their zeal to refocus the world’s attention on decades-old problems carried out the September 11 attacks on America.

Last week’s suicide attack by a Palestinian woman is a new sign that the Palestinian refugee camps have stopped breeding hope.

They are now breeding young men and women who are no longer willing to believe that the world will help them. They understand that certain things — liberty, dignity and the right to their lands — only they can accomplish.