The PA has shown no willingness, credibility, or trustworthyness to suggest that they can be relied on. Let us look at the facts. Under the Oslo accords Yasir Arafat swore off terror and violence and promised to fight terror. Has he kept that promise? Israel withdrew from Gaza and parts of the West Bank and provided money for Arafat, in return his authority uses textbooks which are blatantly anti-semitic and call for the destruction of Israel. Under Oslo, Arafat was limited to 17,000 lightly armed policemen. Somehow this has turned into 6 heavily armed security organizations with almost 50,000 members. Last summer, Barak, the Prime Minister of Israel, offered Arafat prictically everything, A state on %95 of the land, and a compromise in Jerusalem, Arafat's answer was violence.

The fact is that Arafat seems reasonable at times when he speaks in english. However, he is never reasonable when he speaks to his own people in Arabic. Right now, why should Israel talk to Arafat. Either he has lost control and cannot control the groups like Islamic Jihad, Hamas, etc. if so, there is no point in talking to him because he is not in control. If he is in control and can reign in these groups, that means that he could have stopped them a year ago before the situation deteriorated, and therefore is responsible for all the suicide bombings, shootings, (btw, the shootings yesterday were done by PA policemen)etc, of the past year, if so why should Israel trust him?