by JAMES TARANTO
Tuesday, June 25, 2002 1:03 P.M. EDT

Bush's Postwar Vision
From the ashes of World War II, with America's help, arose a free and democratic Germany and Japan. America's former foes also gained freedom at the end of World War III. (That's the Cold War, for those of you who aren't familiar with Eilot Cohen's terminology.) Yesterday President Bush set forth his vision for the world after World War IV:

I have a hope for the people of Muslim countries. Your commitments to morality and learning and tolerance lead to great historical achievements, and those values are alive in the Islamic world today. You have a rich culture, and you share the aspirations of men and women in every culture. Prosperity and freedom and dignity are not just American hopes or Western hopes, they are universal human hopes. And even in the violence and turmoil of the Middle East, America believes those hopes have the power to transform lives and nations.

Like impatient children, the New York Times and Washington Post editorial pages respond by criticizing Bush for not solving the decades-old Israeli-Palestinian conflict right this second! As if taking orders from some Central Command of Insipid Liberalism, both use the same metaphor; the Times' editorial is headlined "A Plan Without a Map"; the Post's, "An Uncertain Road Map."

Those who view the Israeli-Palestinian dispute in isolation have blinders on. It is in fact part of a broader conflict between Israel and the Arab world, which itself is part of the broader war between the West and radical Islamists. Yasser Arafat and his counterparts in Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad are not solitary actors; they wage terror with the financial, logistical and moral support of many other Muslim states, especially Iran, Iraq and Syria. Just as the Soviet Union had to give up its ambitions of empire before the Berlin Wall could fall, these terrorist states must reform or be overthrown before "Palestine" can live in peace.

In his speech yesterday, the president actually was quite specific about the "road map":

I've said in the past that nations are either with us or against us in the war on terror. To be counted on the side of peace, nations must act. Every leader actually committed to peace will end incitement to violence in official media and publicly denounce homicide bombings. Every nation actually committed to peace will stop the flow of money, equipment and recruits to terrorist groups seeking the destruction of Israel, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah.

Every nation actually committed to peace must block the shipment of Iranian supplies to these groups and oppose regimes that promote terror, like Iraq.

And Syria must choose the right side in the war on terror by closing terrorist camps and expelling terrorist organizations.

As we observed back in March, the road to peace goes through Baghdad. If the Times and the Post are still lost, they might want to stop and ask for directions.

Psychologists Call This 'Projection'
That same New York Times editorial contains the following passage:

Mr. Bush . . . appeared to rule out much improvement in the lives of Palestinians until Yasir Arafat is ousted. . . . We are no fans of Mr. Arafat either, and we accept Mr. Bush's conclusion that Israel and the Palestinians will have little hope of achieving real peace as long as he is in charge. But making Mr. Arafat's fate the be-all and end-all of the Mideast peace process makes him look far too significant, and makes it all the harder for the Palestinians themselves to show him the door. Mr. Bush had a better approach when he was ignoring Mr. Arafat and placing emphasis on democratic reforms that would help bring others into positions of authority.

With apologies to Harper's:

Number of Arafat mentions in the Times' editorial: 5
Number of Arafat mentions in the president's speech: 0

Side of Beef
Another dopey complaint that's been popping up a lot is that Bush's speech is, in the words of a headline in Britain's Guardian, to a "one-sided offer." The Toronto Star gripes that "Bush's vision amounts to making heavy demands of the Palestinian side." The Philadelphia Inquirer calls them "severe demands." A New York Times "news analysis" says "Mr. Bush declared the price of statehood for 4.5 million Palestinians, and it will be high."

So, what exactly did Bush demand? Well, he called on the Palestinians "to build a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty." We suppose that for the sake of being "evenhanded" he could also have called on the Israelis to do the same thing. But that would have been rather silly, wouldn't it? After all, Israel is already a practicing democracy, based on tolerance and liberty.

Even more ridiculous is the notion that by calling for freedom and democracy, President Bush is demanding "concessions" from the Palestinians. In fact, he is calling for the liberation of the Palestinians. To say that Bush's demand for liberty is an imposition on the Palestinians is to imply that the Palestinians have no higher political aspiration than to be ruled by a corrupt dictatorship.

Hey, Thanks for Clearing That Up
From a Reuters dispatch:

Bush, in a long anticipated address charting a roadmap to Middle East peace, told Palestinians they must elect a new leadership "not compromised by terror" to win an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

"Terror" referred to suicide bombings by Palestinian militants that have killed scores of Israelis during a 21-month-old uprising against occupation in territory captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

'Personally, I Have Nothing Against Jews'
The American Muslim Council translates an article from a Polish newspaper entitled "Palestinian Vendors Boycott the New York Post" (it's low on the page). Reported from the Greenpoint neighborhood of Brooklyn, it includes this charming vignette:

Ismael who owns one of the stores on Manhattan Avenue carefully explained, "We will give up the Post very soon because there is no big demand for it." He would only give me the real reason after I proved to him that I was not a spy from the Post. "Actually, I only sell this paper because they deliver it to my store. The Post writes badly about us and our stores. They put us in the same bag with the extremists who destroyed the World Trade Center. It hurts because each nation has its black sheep and it's wrong to generalize. The editors have a bias against Muslims. They are extremely pro-Jewish. Personally, I have nothing against Jews but they have a lot against me. Jews don't like anybody--us, Americans, Poles. Wasn't it the Jews who crucified Jesus? And he was the best man in the world," Ismael said.

Give Her a Medal
President Vladimir Putin has awarded the Russian Order of Courage to 28-year-old Tatyana Sapunova, who suffered burns and eye injuries when she tried to pull down a booby-trapped highway sign that has been variously translated as "Death to Jews" and "Death to Yids," the Associated Press reports. The award recognizes Sapunova's "courage and selflessness in fulfilling her civic duty." We first noted the story last month.

Booty Call
From a televised sermon by Shaykh Abd-al-Rahman Ibn-Abd-al-Aziz al-Sudays, imam of the holy mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia: "O God, deal with the Jews and Zionists for they are within Your power. O God, scatter their assemblies, make them a lesson for others, and let them and their property be a booty for Muslims."

Do You Take This Tot to Be Your Wife?
Iran is raising the age at which a girl can get married without her parents' consent--to 13. The old age of consent, Reuters reports, was nine. The age of consent for boys is also rising, to 15 from 14. Nine-year-old girls will still be able to marry, but only with their parents' permission and "approval of a 'righteous court.' "

Stupidity Watch
Remember Gar Smith? He's the editor of Earth Island Journal, and we noted last Sept. 16 that he'd posted a piece on Sept. 13 blaming that week's mass murder on America, for using too much oil. Blogger Howard Fienberg notes that Smith has written another article, this time singing the praises of Islam as a "green" religion. He bases this entirely on quotes from the Koran and doesn't mention that many of the world's largest oil suppliers are Muslim countries.

Cap and Gun
We're against "zero tolerance," but this is ridiculous. In Ithaca, N.Y., the Alternative Community School had a murderer as a commencement speaker. The Monday graduation ceremony featured a "message"--on tape, we presume--from Mumia Abu-Jamal, who murdered Philadelphia policeman Daniel Faulkner in 1981.

A Rake's Progress
Writing in The Rake, a Minneapolis magazine, Clinton Collins Jr. complains that "when Minnesota publishers of white mainstream publications put black people on the cover of their magazines," they "do not sell as well":

In April 2002, The Rake put a Somali woman on the cover to highlight a top story about strained relations between blacks and Somalis. According to The Rake editor Hans Eisenbeis, the issue had nearly twice as many returns as the previous issue which had Bob Dylan on the cover. "That issue was one of our strongest issues editorially. The writing was great. But people just did not pick it up. Tom [Bartel, The Rake's publisher] warned me that putting a black person on the cover could be a problem."

To explain this, he quotes publishing consultant Rebecca Sterner: "One could simply say these things happen because we are a racist society. The more charitable view is that people are more comfortable buying a magazine when they can identify with the cover subject."

In any case, we'd say it's a testament to the enormous racial progress of the past half century that people have time to worry about such vanishingly trivial matters.

Your Tax Dollars at Work
"The Bush administration has begun a civil rights investigation into the use of American Indian symbols and tribal names in West Virginia's 4-H Club chapter," the Washington Times reports. "The Agriculture Department began investigating yesterday a complaint it received last year from a West Virginia parent whose daughter had attended a 4-H summer camp in 2000. The results of the unprecedented investigation will be forwarded to the Justice Department, which could end federal funding for the state's 4-H program."

The complainant is Wess Harris, a self-described "white guy dealing with a white people's problem." The Times reports: "Mr. Harris said assertions that the 4-H traditions are observed for their educational value are wrong. Totem poles and teepees were not used by the Indian tribes that the 4-H identifies in the summer camps, he said." Kate Burbank, who heads the 4-H chapter, says she's delighted to be investigated. "If we've been doing things wrong or in violation, then we want to know about it."

You Don't Say
"Gay Male Couples Prefer Cities, Study Finds"--headline, San Francisco Chronicle, June 25.

Dogs of War
Cops pulled over the Oscar Mayer Weinermobile last Friday for driving too close to the Pentagon, United Press International reports. The driver didn't know the nearby highway had been closed to trucks since Sept. 11, but Oscar Mayer spokeswoman Sarah Delea says "a police officer let them know and was kind enough to direct traffic to allow the Wienermobile to exit."

The driver didn't get a ticket. "Obviously this was a mistake," UPI quotes a state police spokeswoman as saying. "This hot dog posed no threat to us." Which didn't stop them from serving it with disrelish.

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Today on OpinionJournal:

• Review & Outlook: Bush's bold plan for Mideast peace.
• Tom Bray: The "wilderness" is burning, and environmentalists are to blame.
• Michael Judge: At New York's storied Algonquin, politics intrudes on cabaret.