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"Each time a person stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, these ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance." –Robert F. Kennedy

Yesterday President Bush issued a statement that he is "disappointed" with Yassir Arafat. "He must make a full effort to rout out terror in the Middle East," Bush said. "In order for there to be peace we've got to rout out terror." Well then George, you’d better start with Ariel Sharon.

It is my humble, or not so humble, opinion that this mess in the Middle East started with the election of Sharon last year; he spent a great deal of time announcing to the world as loudly as he could that he would not talk with Arafat and that he basically had no interest in any sort of peace until the Palestinians decided to fall in line.

Meanwhile, every time a car bomb goes off Sharon has decided the solution is to shoot this person or bomb that person because they’re a terrorist, and if a few innocent Palestinians get in the way, well who cares? And Saint President Bush has spent the past year supporting him.

The final straw for me was when Israel blew up Palestinian Radio. Free speech is a fundamental part of American society, and while Israel might not have free speech, it has continually silenced the voices of Palestinians speaking against Israeli treatment. If Israel is so right, what does it have to be afraid of?

I don’t buy the party line that the station was broadcasting hate messages – there will be violence no matter what’s broadcast on Palestinian Radio. But again we just stand by and let it happen, claiming our umbrella "War On Terrorism."

Oh yeah, that again. Well ladies and gentleman, I still believe in that War On Terrorism. As the dust settles in Afghanistan, I just wonder when we’ll actually start fighting it. At least one, likely both, of the badguys we’re searching for are supposed to be in a country whose government is now supposedly allied with us, and we still can’t catch Omar or bin Laden, probably the two most wanted men in the Western world right now. Give me a break.

Now the human rights people are shouting about our treatment of the Taliban murderers and evil folks we have locked up at Camp X-Ray in Cuba, and I just have to say to them – get your crap together people. You have more to worry about than some scum in Cuba that might get you five minutes of fame.

The whole solution to the Middle East situation is simple – all it requires is for the Palestinians to implement "Satyagraha," and Israel would be powerless before them. And what is this "Satyagraha," you ask. It’s a rather elegant little concept, and it helped bring down segregation. It also defeated the British Empire. A humble man named Mohandas Gandhi invented it – the man who said "Hate the sin and love the sinner."

It’s called active nonviolent resistance, and it is, I guarantee you, unstoppable. To stop Gandhi they had to kill him. To stop Martin Luther King, they had to shoot him as he stood on the balcony of an Atlanta hotel. To stop the Palestinians, Sharon would have to kill them.

One group of Palestinians on the Dome Of The Rock is all it would take. All they would have to do is sit at the foot of their holy place and resist without violence. Satyagraha. A simple word for such a profound moment – a moment that has changed the world. A moment which could change it again.