The New York Times writes today under the headline "Gaza First, but
Not Last":

"The United States cannot allow Mr. Sharon to maneuver it into
sanctioning an indefinite Israeli occupation of the West Bank."

The problem with this is that the United States doesn´t have to
be maneuvered to sanction this; it´s pretty willing to sanction it
without Israeli manouvering. After all, the leaders of the United
States see themselves as loyal supporters of Israel. In the failed
negotiations in 2001 president Clinton was - according to Israeli
negoatiators - no neutral third party, but more hawkish than the
Israeli negotiators themselves; they had to calm him down.

The problem with Palestine is that the United States is more
pro-Israel than most Israelis and that the European Union is
acting weaker than it is, to it´s own misery. United States may be
quite happy to sponsor eternal Israeli oppression of Palestinians,
but the European Union really needs peace on it´s neighbouring
areas and rising tension between Islam and "Christendom" will
have bigger effect in Europe than in the Fundamentalist States
of America.