When the Leader of the Free World Visits...

A normally busy street in Ramallah during President Bush's visit.

One would expect a visit from a leader whose foreign policy rhetoric included spreading freedom to bring people out, not shut them in. Palestinians are already captives in their own bantustans thanks to Israeli policies. When Bush comes to town, it's house arrest for everyone (as Mohammad reported).

After visiting Bethlehem and witnessing the apartheid wall, he said: "by my belief that there is an Almighty, and a gift of that Almighty to each man, woman and child on the face of the Earth is freedom."

The only American newspaper worth reading wrote an article about the dim Palestinian response to Bush's visit.

Some are making something out of Bush's trip through a checkpoint and reference to the Israeli "occupation" (which newspapers all have in quotation marks) and its need to end it. While this is a significant advance in using the right words to describe the situation, they do not mean much to the sayer -- a President whose primary achievement in office -- besides being re-elected -- was occupying two countries, and constructed countless checkpoints. For Bush, "occupation" is not a negative term.

Should we impressed he called on Israel to end the occupation? While some found his statements "uncharacteristically blunt," it all depends on what actions follow the words.

Palestinians and most observers are rightfully cynical about American administrations bringing peace. A few superficial gestures like what Bush did is hardly going to convince any Palestinians that liberation is around the corner. No one know the American presidential gap between words and deeds better than do the Palestinians. They experienced an "honest broker" who treated Israeli peace proposals as their own; a highly partisan interlocutor whose relations with Israel are defined by a sense of mutual agendas.

Even Israeli two-state solution proponents are doubtful, according to a piece in the Toronto Globe and Mail.

Israeli politicians, including veterans of the various failed peace processes of the 1990s, ... saw nothing new in Mr. Bush's remarks, since nearly the entire Israeli public is already convinced of the need to give up some of the occupied territories. The question, said Zalman Shoval, a former Israeli ambassador to the United States, is only "what form the separation from the Palestinians will take."

Some linked the speech to Mr. Bush's coming tour of Arab countries. The President will visit five Arab countries in six days, hoping to rally support for the peace process and firm up an alliance against the threat Mr. Bush says is posed by Iran.

"What's come out of this trip is just warm rhetoric. Anyone who expected more than that is going to be disappointed," said Yossi Alpher, who advised former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak at Camp David. "What is [Mr. Bush] prepared to do about it? Nothing, other than rhetoric, and he leaves tomorrow."

Bush has been a downright failure in foreign affairs. Even if he wanted to pull off this legacy-saving measure -- one that is sure to damn the Palestinians since separation won't mean sovereignty -- I doubt he could. He should have made a real effort when his political capital could afford it. This will clearly be too-little-too-late.