AP Misunderstands Bush Palestine Policy

AP reporter Jennifer Loven, reporting from Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt, where President Bush is meeting Arab leaders after visiting Israel, said that, in a speech to the Israeli Knesset the other day marking Israel's 60th birthday, Bush barely mentioned the Palestinians' plight and foresaw a Palestinian state only in 2068. She then quotes several Arab leaders and officials sharply criticizing the speech.

In his speech, Bush said he envisioned that the Palestinians "will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserved -- a democratic state that is governed by law, and respects human rights, and rejects terror."

With these remarks, Bush has gone further than any other Arab leader in supporting a Palestinian state. How so? Because of the conditions he's placed on it. A Palestinian state that resembles its Arab neighbors, where the people cannot freely vote for their leaders who stay in office for lifetimes and where violence reigns, like seen most recently in Lebanon, will do the Palestinians, and the rest of us, much harm and little good. Unlike Ms. Loven would have us believe, Bush understands and sympathizes with the Palestinians' plight very well and very much so because he wants to save them from the failure leadership and sad predicament that most of their Arab bretheren must endure.