It's more than frustrating to fret about the errors, not to say duplicity, of American foreign policy when it appears there are no Americans who know or care what that policy is. To make it worse, while the facts clearly show, for anyone who bothers to look, that we do not act on principle, I am sure that if queried, virtually every American would say otherwise. Noam Chomsky describes the recent history of our Mideast policy in a few paragraphs, and in doing so manages to help us understand why it has gone so wrong (for the Palestinans as well as the Israelis).

The Palestinians have long suffered torture, terror, destruction of property, displacement and settlement, and takeover of basic resources, crucially water. These policies have relied on decisive US support and European acquiescence.

It is regularly claimed that all peace proposals have been undermined by Arab refusal to accept the existence of Israel (the facts are quite different), and by terrorists like Arafat who have forfeited "our trust". How that trust may be regained is explained by Edward Walker, a Clinton Middle East adviser: Arafat must announce that "we put our future and fate in the hands of the US" - which has led the campaign to undermine Palestinian rights for 30 years.