It goes on and on because one lie and one mistake after another creates more chaos. Jordan shouldn't have signed a separate peace and Sharon shouldn't have gone into Shatilla and Arafat shouldn't have counted on marrying an American to give him cover.
Give up the settlements, share Jerusalem, let the Palestine State be created ... and insist that Syria, Egypt, Jordan and the other Arab States guarantee that "Palestine" will be peaceful...or they get a chance to see a need for all new military hardward.
The fact that we can trust Israel and not the PLA makes it clear we have to force the PLA to behave...half-measures and "timely" withdrawal won't work.
Get out, tell them the consequences of attacks and let the Saudis foot the bill for reconstruction. Allow the Palestinians back into Jerusalem while the agree to share Bethlehem (and make it the Palestine Capitol) while reverting to Tel Aviv as Israel's Capitol. If they continue to play the thug then reoccupy, round 'em up and ship em off the Saudis...and start drilling in Anwar.
"We" have to force them to behave? Surely you're not talking about the U.S. If you are, I suspect that "we" does not include you (i.e. you won't have to go, you'll send somebody else's son to do it).
Most of what you say sounds reasonable...on paper. But the people who actually live there don't see it that way. The notion that we can force them to get along on our terms is not realistic. They are going to have to figure this out for themselves. We may not care for their solution but that's life...more specifically, their lives. They are not our children, to be dictated to about how late they can stay out Friday night.
Much of the misery of the past couple of centuries has been caused by so-called statesmen who figured they could "order" the world as they saw fit, because they had a set of maps to play with. As you seem to be familiar with the recent history of the Middle East you must know this applies there as much as anywhere. The elitist meddlers are going to have to get their noses out of the Middle East. Oh, I know: if we don't do this and do that there will be bloodshed, chaos, nuclear bombs, etc. We have that now--because of the meddling. The best thing we can do now is not make it worse.