The Washington Post reports that President Bush has "altered his stand on the Palestinians," that they "should receive compensation for the loss of homes they fled or were forced to flee during the establishment of Israel and declared that there should be an end to Israel's "occupation" of lands seized in war four decades ago." I suppose it's good that Bush now gives some lip service to the overwhelming scholarly and legal consensus about the conflict. On the other hand, the fact that this is newsworthy is a depressing sign of just how unbalanced his approach has been before now. It remains to be seen, however, whether Bush, when he refers to an independent Palestinian state, actually means an independent Palestinian state as is commonly understood by speakers of the English language, or if he is more thinking of Ariel Sharon's vision of an archipelago of Palestinian cantons dependent on Israeli goodwill for its water and energy, with Israeli forces stationed at key economic choke-points, called an "independent Palestinian state." As Bush first stated in 2004, when he reversed decades of U.S. policy, unilaterally decided one of the key final status issues in favor of Israel, and destroyed whatever credibility his administration might have had as a peace-broker, Bush still supports Israel's retaining large settlement blocs in the the West Bank, essentially rewarding Israel for years of illegal settlement building and confirming its strategy of "creating facts on the ground," which has had enormous human costs for the Palestinians, as well as for the Israelis, as the settlements are a major source of violence. It also sends the message, which Iran and others will receive loud and clear, that if you flout international law long enough, the world will acquiesce.
