A sense of bewilderment swept across Palestinian faces as President Bush gave his vision for peace earlier this week. Palestinians had expected the speech to be pro-Israeli overall as well as to deny the fact that Israel's illegal occupation was at the root of the Middle East conflict. However, never did they anticipate Bush would reiterate Sharon's exact words and simply act as the Likud party's spokesman. Why did Bush deliver such a biased vision? Would not such an approach hinder America's credibility in the Arab world?

The answer to these two questions is so easy that one would expect any high school student mildly interested in the history of Middle East to know. First, America has long realized the measure of its power and influence over the Arab world and realizes it is the master and the Arab world is the puppet. Second, since credibility is hardly an issue for the American administration the real battleground is fought within America's internal politics. Once again, the American parties realize that pro-Arab policies yield negative votes while pro-Israeli actions not only provide the party concerned with necessary votes, but, also, with a vital and unlimited cash flow.

With these considerations in mind, the shock at Bush's speech subsides, as the realization that this fall there will be Congressional elections emerges. Typically, the American Jewish vote and support has been towards the Democratic Party, which currently has a majority in the Senate and is hindering several of Bush's favored bills from being passed. Hence, if Bush is to gain the power he desires in order to implement his goals he must sway the all-powerful American Jewish vote. What better way to achieve this than to offer the most pro-Israeli view, on the Middle East conflict, ever put forward by an American President!

Clearing this out of the way, one is able to look at Bush's vision with hindsight, but this in no way diminishes the ironies in his speech. Bush calls on the Palestinians to embrace democracy at the same time he dictates to them who they are not allowed to elect, namely Yasser Arafat and anyone Israel disapproves off, which leaves one wondering if there is anyone at all. The American administration 'saved' democracy while dictating terms by saying, "we respect democratic processes, but there are consequences." In effect, if America, under orders from Israel, disapproves of an elected Palestinian leader, even if voted for freely and legitimately, it will cut off financial aid to the Palestinians, which it channels through the UN and World Bank, despite the humanitarian disaster this would create.

Bush then wants the Palestinian government to be transparent, presumably not modeling its activities after the American government whose Pentagon cannot account for billions of taxpayer's dollars, which it has somehow misplaced. Moreover, with the Enron scandal, followed quickly by Worldcom and Xerox, the US economy has suffered enormous losses as American's continue to lose hope in the national economic policies of the Bush administration and the lax accounting system. Despite all this Bush had the nerve to ask an inexperienced people, the Palestinians, to have a perfect system, not compromised by any corruption, a feat still not conquered by the Western world, to deal with all financial matters. Moreover, the corruption within the Palestinian Authority (PA) was discovered and brought to the international community's attention through a committee set up by the PA.

The above ironies are but a few that can be pointed out in Bush's speech. As America struggles with the same problems it expects the Palestinians to eradicate, the only thing that the Palestinians, by default, are managing to do better than the Americans is to take, by lack of choice, Bush's health advice. Bush asked the American public to eat less and walk more. The Palestinians thanks to Israel's devastating curfews on the West Bank and humiliating checkpoints have been forced to both eat less and walk more. Bush should have simply asked Americans to be more like the Palestinians without, of course, the Israeli army breathing down their backs.