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"Are you saying you prefer a Palestinian state WITH Arafat at the helm?

What would you have done differently? "

No I don't have any brief for Arafat. I don't think most Palestinians do either. The secular ones think he is inept and corrupt. The jihadists want to kill him and/or replace him with someone of their own stripe.

What would I have done differently? I think it's a mistake not to negotiate a peace STARTING NOW, a peace that isolates and disempowers the jihadists, that gives the Palestinians reasonable hope of a real state, with real state powers, not a pretend state with limited powers. It should also provide real guarantees for Isreal's security as well. It should be a secular state and have most of the hallmarks of democracy. It should be economically viable.

We're not going to get anywhere by telling the Palestinians to "lay down their arms" and trust that the US and Isreal will at some indefinite future see to it that there is a Palestinian state -- which is in essence what Bush has done. The current Isreali government -- and unfortunately any one likely to come about in the near term wants occupation and repression of the Palestinians indefinitely. That is why they are so gleeful at Bush's speech. They don't see it leading to anything but occupation and repression.

Most of the world will see it that way too. So will the Palestinians.

The one and only positive thing that Bush did do was to lay down a marker in which there is, at some indefinite and inchoate future point, a Palestinian State. Those who desparately want to see the glass as half full may well sieze on that fact and try to remove some of Bush's unworkable pre-conditions. SO that's the one glimmer of hope of avoiding either a bloodbath among the Palestinians or the formation of a popular front, devoted to armed resistance among them.

The speech really wasn't a foreign policy speech, in my opinion. It was really about domestic politics, about winning more jewish votes in 2004, about solidifying the evangelical base, and about sending a "coherent" message about terror. This last one is especially misguided. Neither the Palestinians nor their Arab brethren nor most of the rest of the world will ever equate Palestinian resistance to occupation and repression and their struggle for a nation on their own homeland with terrorism. So to whom is Bush trying to send a "coherent" message. To us, his fellow Americans, especially those of jewish persuasion.