NO WONDER THE CHIMP IS ALWAYS SMIRKING:

Bush Offers Financial Aid to Abbas in Key Sign of Support: At a White House meeting, the president hails the Palestinian leader's reform efforts. (Paul Richter and Ken Ellingwood, May 27, 2005, LA Times)

President Bush on Thursday made an important show of support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, offering U.S. financial aid and hailing his reform efforts in the first White House meeting with a Palestinian leader since 2000.

Bush offered Abbas $50 million in direct aid to help Palestinians settle the Gaza Strip once Israel completes its planned withdrawal of Jewish settlers and soldiers this summer. Although the amount is not considered large, the gesture is a key sign of confidence. The United States, concerned about corruption in the Palestinian government, has given it direct aid only twice in the last decade.

"You have made a new start on a difficult journey, requiring courage and leadership each day," Bush told Abbas, who has faced mounting challenges since he was elected in January. "And we will take that journey together."

The offer of aid and Bush's warm words marked a sharp contrast from the treatment accorded Abbas' predecessor, the late Yasser Arafat. Bush did not consider the longtime Palestinian leader a viable diplomatic partner and never invited him to the White House.

It's unfair to make one person stand for the inanities and inaccuracies of all, but we're going to anyway. Here's just the first story we found when looking through the archives for folks critical of President Bush's demand that the Palestinians elect a replacement for Arafat with whom he coyuld then do business, Mideast Misstep: Bush's dismal foray into peacemaking. (Adam B. Kushner, 6.27.02, American Prospect)

President Bush concluded his Rose Garden speech about the Middle East on Monday by calling the moment "a test to show who is serious about peace and who is not." Given how naïve his plan is -- how astonishingly far it is from any foreseeable reality -- he may have failed his own test. It's not that Bush's goals aren't noble or correct, but real diplomacy takes more than wishful thinking.

Bush's fuzzy logic, to borrow a term, is weakest with regard to what he calls the "Palestinian leadership." By refusing even to name Yasir Arafat, the president showed that he's just not ready for an honest attempt at peacemaking.

It's not that Arafat is a stand-up guy, or even a credible negotiator. Revelations in recent months all but conclusively unmasked Arafat as a financial supporter of terrorism. It's quite possible the peace process would fare better in his absence. But there's no guarantee. And that's because there's not yet a viable replacement for him -- that we know of, at least.

Who was naive? It's hard to see how events could have followed much more closely their predicted path.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 27, 2005 12:00 AM