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Bush's policy of putting off provisional statehood -- what kind of statehood that is I don't know -- until Arafat is removed may look good on the surface, but it seems to me a policy counterproductive in the extreme.

Ask yourself who he imagines will replace Arafat and how he imagines the replacement will happen? I imagine that it would take a bloodbath among the Palestinians to bring this about. And I don't see any incentive for secular, democratically inclined Palestinians to risk such a bloodbath -- especially since Bush's promised payoffs are so inchoate and indefinite.

Why would it take a civil war, you ask?

Well think like a Palestinian.

Suppose you are a Palestinian of the Hamas, Hezbullah sort. You desparately want to replace the secular Palestinian Authority with an radical Islamic "government." If so, you have no interest whatsoever in the "vision" Bush laid out in his speech of a democratic and presumably secular Palestine. Nor do you have any deep interest in peace with Isreal. You want to destroy Isreal, not negotiate peace with it. How do you react to Bush's proposal? Despite the fact that you totally reject Bush's vision, you should react with utter glee because it sets up a trap for your secular Palestinian brethen. The only way they can move toward their secular state is by kowtowing to Sharon and Bush. You would love to have the US joined at the hip, in Palestinian opinion, with Sharon. And you would love it even more to be able to portray the secular Palestinians as the whipping boys of the Sharon-Bush axis of evil (to coin a phrase.).

Okay. Now take the other side. Suppose that you are a secular Palestinian who loathes both the corrupt and ineffectual Arafat and jihadists like Hamas, et al. You would deeply love to see a modern, democratic state of the sort Bush envisions. What do you do. In your secret heart of hearts you say that Bush is right about the best course forward. But you worry deeply about how to get there from here, about how to bring the majority of Palestinians, who mostly are suffering angry and alienated, along to your cause? Do you do so by dumping the very guy who is in some sense the father of your resistance movement on command, as it were, from Sharon and his toady Bush? HOw would that sell in the streets of Palestine? HOw would you radical islamic opponents play that one up?

You can't accept Bush's approach. If you do, you undermine Palestinian unity -- which despite all the differences among you is a powerful weapon in your favor. Imagine that the slaveholding south and the free north had not made common cause in the American revolution. Would the Revolution have succeeded? To be sure, the failure to deal with the deep divisions among you may have far reaching consequences in less than a century -- just as in the American Revolution. But you are trying to give birth to a nation. You believe you can put off dealing with internal divisions until after the nation is born.

So in order not to breach the fragile unity of your disparate people, you too reject Bush's vision (at least publically and for the moment.) But Bush has set it up so that if you reject his vision, the only alternatives before you are either decades of further repression and occupation or armed struggle.

Which do you choose?

Maybe you and the jihadist form a united front. Maybe you declare a Palestinian state right now. And devote yourself to armed struggle entirely. Maybe you call on all "right thinking" people of the world, people who love freedom and rejecty tyranny and oppression to side with you, to understand your need to wage war against Isreal.

Speaking again in my own voice. It may be that I'm just a dark souled pessimist. (I am at least that, the only question is whether I am only that). But I do have to say that if I were a secular Palestinian, I would believe that I have just been told that there is no hope short of civil war, without having been given any incentive to engage in such a war. And if I were a jihadist, I would believe that I have been given exactly what I want and that the only way the secularist can "isolate" me now -- which they have always wanted and have been unable to do -- is via civil war. Moreover, I would rejoice at the thought that short of civil war, the option of a peace which I cannot endure -- a peace that produces two states, a jewish state and a secular palestinian state -- has effectively been taken off the table indefintely.

Think for a minute. First , GWB is not Clinton. The people around him are experienced grown ups. They don`t do everything in public, in fact, they hold their cards real close. Bet they already have cut a deal with the Saudis and Egypt to put pressure on the Palestians to dump Arafat and that the Saudis will bankroll a Palestian nation that supports real peace. Interesting that Syria is now in the spotlight. ,p> Never forget, through all of this, Iraq and Iran, are the targets.

God bless GWB

I'm just a dark souled pessimist...

So I'm not alone? :)

"Bush's policy of putting off provisional statehood...until Arafat is removed may look good on the surface, but it seems to me a policy counterproductive in the extreme."

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

What would you have done differently?

Why would it take a civil war, you ask?

There are several problems with the Bush plan, but none of them worse than the current situation.

One problem is getting the Saudis and other middle eastern governments to stop supporting terrorists. The reason they support terrorism and hatred against Israel and the west is to deflect anger away from their own governments. This really is a "1984" situation of a governent creating an enemy to keep the people's minds off of their own lives. It will be hard to get them to stop the hate mongering filling their state controlled press. Harder to get them to stop sending money to terrorist groups.

What Bush has done is lay down a series of concrete actions that pretty much anybody that now lives in a free democracy can agree on. A real government structure (one with checks and balances on power, and power distributed amoung various parts of the government, not concentrated in one person.) Free elections at every level. A true judiciary system (an independent one based upon law, not one under the thumb of a single person.)

What Bush has done is instead of just stating the goal (a palestinian state), he has laid down a series of steps that must be taken to get to that goal. They are much more likely to get the job done by taking a series of small steps than by trying to do it all at once.

The biggest problem with the Bush plan is it assumes the goal of the palestinians is an independent state. Eliminating Israel is the primary goal of most activist palestinians, with the establishment of a palestinian state comming in a long second. It will take a long time to undo that mindset. Look at how the hard liners in both Taiwan and China hold onto the idea that they are still one nation, even thought the typical man in the street (especially in Taiwan) have given up the one nation idea.