AL-BIREH, West Bank -- The mirage of positive movement in the deadly gridlock between Israelis and Palestinians continued last week, uninterrupted by reality. Following U.S. President George Bush's footsteps, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell, during a major Middle East policy address at the University of Louisville in Kentucky, finally confirmed the addition of the word "Palestine" to the U.S. political lexicon.
More significantly, Powell explicitly acknowledged, for the first time ever, that Israel's illegal "occupation" of Palestinian land and people "must end."
For this new thrust in U.S. policy, the Bush administration should be applauded, although the United States is nearly the last nation on Earth to face these simple common-sense policy decisions.