With every new atrocity, the Israelis hint at more extreme measures against Yasser Arafat, and the Palestinian militants.

Exile of the leader of the Palestinains, Yasser Arafat, is said to be an idea being discussed by the Israeli cabinet, as it plots how to avenge itself for the latest suicide bombing.

Political opinion in the United States seems largely happy to go along with more extreme measures, but Europe is perceived as being much more squeamish. There are even accusations that European criticism of Israel is merely a modern day expression of ancient anti-Semitism.

Jeremy Paxman spoke to the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw who was in Washington for talks with the US administration. He asked him first if he would ever support the expulsion of Yasser Arafat.

Watch the interview

JACK STRAW:
(Foreign Secretary)
No we've not supported any of those proposals, we did not remotely support President Arafat's exile or siege in Ramallah and in the end we were instrumental in securing his release from that siege.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Have the Americans given you any indication as to whether they think it is legitimate or not?

JACK STRAW:
The American Government position, and they can speak for themselves, but they have made it pretty clear that they also accept that they have to deal with the leaders who they deal with. They can't pick and choose them. That is why they have accepted President Arafat is the head of the Palestinian Authority and will have to be dealt with. It is also important that we don't look at the Palestinian Authority through rose-tinted spectacles. It does have problems about the way it organises its security, spread into eight separate security organisations which doesn't help its own authority within the area of the occupied territories, and its civil institutions need to be better organised, made more transparent and less corrupt.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Condoleezza Rice says this generation of Palestinian leaders cannot achieve the Palestinian state they say they want. Do you agree?

JACK STRAW:
I think you may have taken her remarks out of context. What I believe in, and what the UK Government believes in, is virtually the same as that stated by US President Bush in his speech in November of last year to the general assembly which is a two-state permanent solution to this desperate situation. A secure state of Israel within borders that are recognised and a state of Israel which is recognised in the Arab world alongside a viable state of Palestine with its own border set out and solutions to these long-running problems of refugees of the Jewish settlements in the occupied territories and the question of the circumstance in which the capital of the occupied territories of a new state of Palestine can be sited in Jerusalem.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
And you believe that can be delivered by the leadership in the form of Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat?

JACK STRAW:
I believe that for that to be delivered, Prime Minister Sharon and President Arafat are going to have to play a leading role. Whether it is delivered is another matter, but for sure I know this, that if we are to break out of this cycle of violence and cycle of killings and also break out of the political stalemate in which the terrorists are calling the shots in terms of the politics of it all, then we have to have a pathway back to peace, that means immediate security measures and I am very glad that George Tenet the director of the CIA is going back to the region shortly to try and broker that. It means an increase in humanitarian aid to the occupied territories, immediate reconstruction of some of the infrastructure and this regional meeting to try and get at the architecture of a longer term peace process there. We don't have to sketch in every detail, because people simply argue about that, but you do have to have a clear vision of what the final settlement should look like.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
What do you make of this increasing talk in the American media of a chasm opening between Europe and the US on the Middle East? It's put in the context of rising anti-Semitism in Europe.

JACK STRAW:
I was at Capitol Hill today talking to Congressmen. There is certainly a sense there of great concern about what they see as rising anti-Semitism in Europe and I tried to put the examples of anti-Semitism of which I have been aware in Europe into some kind of context. I am concerned about differences in perception of the Middle East problem here in the US and in Europe. That was part of a theme of a lecture which I gave at the Brookings Institute this morning about the need, whilst we recognise these differences in perception, the need all the more to ensure that the EU and the UK and the US work even more closely together to help resolve the Middle East situation. One thing I know for certain is that if the EU allows itself to be separated from the US and played off against the US and Israel that will not help a peace process, but simply undermine it.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
When you hear from someone like Charles Krauthammer... I quote here from an article in The Washington Post that he wrote, "What we are seeing is pent-up anti-Semitism, the release with Israel as the trigger, of an millennium-old urge that powerfully infected and shaped European history." He is by no means alone in talking like that?

JACK STRAW:
I read the same article I don't believe it is representative either of opinion here or an accurate representation of what is happening in Europe. We are all concerned about the phenomenon of the National Front in France and Le Pen and in a different way and to a different degree about what has happened in the Netherlands as well as the more isolated problems we have had in the UK. But I do not believe that Europe is going down the road of anti-Semitism and certainly speaking for the UK, I believe that there is powerful support for the state of Israel, for the right of the Jewish people in Israel to live in peace with security. But there is also strong support too for a Palestinian state and the right of the Palestinians to live in peace with security, for all parties to be offered a way out of this cycle of violence and despair.

JEREMY PAXMAN:
Foreign Secretary, thank you.

JACK STRAW:
Thank you very much.

This transcript was produced from the teletext subtitles that are generated live for Newsnight. It has been checked against the programme as broadcast, however Newsnight can accept no responsibility for any factual inaccuracies. We will be happy to correct serious errors.