It does not bode well for President Bush's newly announced Middle East peace effort that within hours of his stated optimism about the future of the "peace process," the first candidate to announce for the office vacated by Yasser Arafat's death was Marwan Barghouti, who is serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison for an attack that killed four Israelis and a Greek monk...

...The other possible candidates also reflect Arafat's strategy of using terror to eradicate the State of Israel and all Jews. There are no leaders who openly favor making peace with Israel because Arafat had them executed.

Three who have assumed senior leadership positions of the major Palestinian Arab institutions are Mahmoud Abbas (also known as Abu Mazen), Farouk Kaddoumi and Ahmed Qureia. A quick look at their resumes does not give confidence that these guys are the peace-loving democrat leaders sought by President Bush...

...Both The New York Times and Israeli Radio reported on March 31, 2003, that Abbas, a former Palestinian Authority prime minister, had offered Cabinet positions to leaders of Hamas and Islamic Jihad and praised Arab terrorists imprisoned by Israel as "political prisoners" and "heroes." Abbas is the author of a book that denies the Nazis murdered 6 million Jews...

...Two years ago, Kaddoumi declared "the PLO no longer recognizes Israel and adheres to its national charter." Thirty of the 33 clauses in the PLO charter call for Israel's destruction or violence against Israel. Numerous statements by Kaddoumi over the years have made it clear that he, like Arafat, has no intention of settling for anything less than all of the land and none of the Jews...

...Qureia has opposed action against terrorists, attacked President Bush for referring to Israel as a "Jewish state," declared his hope that Britain would "correct the historic mistake (it) committed against Palestinians through the Balfour Declaration in 1917" (which declared Britain's support "in Palestine for a national home for the Jewish people") and publicly trampled on Israel's flag.

The vision for Israel's future must be based on something other than fantasy. Hoping that these killers will suddenly beat their swords into ploughshares, or that the brainwashed "Palestinian people" will elect a true democrat or someone who would pursue objectives other than those of Arafat and his henchmen, is wishing upon a star.

Since Israel's establishment as a modern nation in 1948, pleadings for peace have traveled in just one direction. Peace can't be made in a vacuum. It takes two peoples committed to democratic longings and religious liberty. So far, only one side has demonstrated a commitment to such principles...

You have to hand it to the Palestinians. They have gotten away with fabricating a nationality where none existed prior to Yasser Arafat's terrorism-backed strutting on the world stage. They have enjoyed global successes in staking historical claims to territory that clearly post-dated those of the Jews.

Now, notwithstanding the fact that they and other Arabs have waged war against Israel incessantly — via both conventional and unconventional means — ever since the modern Jewish State was founded in 1948, they have obtained the support of even President Bush for the ultimate reward: a sovereign state of Palestine.

Unfortunately, there is every reason to believe that such an entity will amount to something Mr. Bush would never knowingly countenance, let alone support — the creation of yet another state-sponsor of terror...