Yeah, I mean, what's Arafat going to say? I'm renouncing terror? I'm not renouncing terror? Either way, it's the end of the road for Arafat. I assume that Team Bush had this figured out months ago when they laid out the game plan. After all, nothing that has transpired since 9/11 has been exactly unpredictable.
One thing is predictable, it is that Bush is re-slapping identifying labels on both sides. That can only backfire into all out war in the region. Terror, as opposed to war, at the bottom, is about identity, not about jurisprudence. The wars resulting from terror become inevitable of course. Insisting on identifying each side is exacerbating the situation. He does it right when he blames the identity through terror, but he does it wrong when he recognizes a Palestinian and an Israeli identity, instead of recognizing the need for a jurisprudence in the region transcending identity and cults of the respective autonomous regions. AFter all, it does not matter where Palestinians and Israelies settle in the region, it is where they are registered to designate their own leaders that is important. Demographics should not influence jurisdiction and the identities of a Jewish substate and a Palestinian sub-state. However those identities should have no sway over the confederation itself.
Whosoever can transcend these identities will own both Israel and Palestine. As for those hoping the law of the jungle will give them survival of the fittest advantage in the region, mankind is hardly fit to survive in a jungle. In fact the Israeli liberal democracy is most capable and most present in the region to carry on the necessary conditions for an Isralo-Palestinian confederation. However people keep ignoring this capability of Israel - made of an army of jews, bedoins, Druzes and arabs. Slapping on labels like Jews, Palestinians and Israelies is hardly helping either. Not that Israel is perfect and its body politics would respect a confederation transcending their various cults and classes, but at least they are the ones in the best position to carry it all on. Blaming them for mishaps is attacking their contract building work, and it is not helping the contract building and peace building necessary for the region.
One last thing, compassionate conservatism is a nutty doctrine and definition to carry out something that transcends any of this political nonsense. Bush better give it up.