In the wake of the administration's failed attempt at achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement last spring, Abu Mazen and the Palestinian leadership have increased in both intensity and pace their scheme to achieve unilaterally what they have refused to do so directly with the democratic Jewish State of Israel, which is establish an independent state of Palestine. The latest and perhaps most dangerous manifestation of this push was when Abu Mazen and the Palestinians acceded to the Rome Statute to join the International Criminal Court after last December's Palestinian-backed U.N. Security Council resolution failed. That the administration was unable to prevent the Palestinian leadership from going to the U.N. and then again to the ICC, underscores the notion that our credibility and leverage have waned so much to the point where our diplomacy efforts end up doing perhaps more harm than good. The situation and these problems perhaps could have been avoided had the administration taken a tougher stance with the PA using the only real leverage that we have, namely the hundreds of millions of dollars that we give each year, instead of coddling it and refusing to cut off the aid, hoping and wishing that Abu Mazen would change his tune.