AL-BIREH, West Bank -- Monday's long-awaited speech by U.S. President George W. Bush was to set the pace for the Palestinians and Israelis to step back from the vicious and bloody cycle of violence that has gripped them for nearly two years. Instead, Bush and his administration have publicly adopted the Israeli agenda of battering the Palestinians into submission.
Bush's illusion that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict can be "talked away" in a series of speeches is not only a poor example of leadership but seriously places U.S. interests in the region at high risk.
Bush's administration has utterly failed to comprehend the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and, in particular, the Palestinian predicament today, which stems from an Israeli reoccupation of small parcels of land that were transferred to the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Peace Accords.