Stardate 20020718.2324

(On Screen): I find the Saudis deeply puzzling. I keep wavering between the idea that they are completely inept and the idea that they are deeply crafty. Right now I'm leaning toward "inept".

It's been standard Arab propaganda to take any accusation made against the Palestinians or any other Arab and reflect it against Israel. As soon as the Palestinian bombing campaign against Israel began to be referred to as "terrorist", the Arabs started calling Israel a terrorist nation and referred to its military operations against the Palestinians as "terrorist", in speeches and in empty-gesture acts of the UN General Assembly and in virtually every international forum whether it actually makes any sense there or not.

The effect has been to render the word useless in political rhetoric for purposes of describing what the Palestinians have been doing, not to mention actually convincing some westerners with soft skulls that Israel is the true terrorist nation and so on and so forth.

That's not the only such case; every single word which comes into vogue to refer to "bad guys" instantly gets laid on Israel, repetitively and very loudly. (For instance, when the US started referring to certain Arab states, notably Syria and Libya and Iraq as "rogue states" then Israel instantly became a "rogue state" too. Notice that no-one uses the term "rogue state" any longer.)

So while it's intellectually completely dishonest, it does have the virtue of being effective. But sometimes the tactic can approach the ludicrous.

One of the notable aspects of the Bush plan for Israel is that it does not give the Palestinians the benefit of the doubt, and places the burden of the first acts of good faith on them. The United States will no longer deal with the Palestinians unless they make certain substantial changes, and the US expects Israel to make no concessions to the Palestinians until after they've done so.

The Arabs think this is blatantly unfair.

"It seemed to us that in the speech everything the Palestinians have to do is upfront and everything the Israelis have to do is delayed and is conditional on the will of the Israeli government. I don't think this is a good formula.

"What we want to do is to reshuffle the vision that has been expressed by the American government and to create links between the obligations of both sides," he said.

The other Arab foreign ministers, Marwan al-Muasher of Jordan and Prince Saud al-Faisal of Saudi Arabia, broadly agree with the Egyptian position and are expected to tell Bush bluntly that his Middle East plans will not work in their present form, Arab diplomats said.

Of course, conspicuous by its absence is any recognition that the Saudi peace plan (remember it?) would have had Israel do everything up front, and the Arabs and Palestinians only fulfill their obligations later. Somehow when that was the way of things, it was a completely reasonable plan.

Still, the idea that both sides should make moves equally has its attraction, at least on the surface. The only problem with it is that it's been tried already, and the Palestinians didn't fulfill their promises. That's what Oslo involved: both sides made promises; both sides were to carry them out simultaneously. Israel did what it said; the Palestinians did jack.

If this were the first attempt at a peace proposal between the two sides, balance would be reasonable and proper. But the Palestinians have lied about these kinds of things before, and from now on anyone who acts as if he believes that they will act in good faith would have to be an idiot. The reason that the Palestinians have to make the first moves is because they've proved that their word is not good. Their promises are worthless, and only actions by them will be deemed sufficient from now on.

Still, representatives of three "friendly" Arab nations visited Bush today to try to convince him to nuke Israel. Bush bought them off with pretty words which were meaningless:

Bush, speaking in the Oval Office before talks with the ministers, told reporters: "Our vision for peace understands that all parties have got responsibilities. The United States has a responsibility... The Israelis have a responsibility. The Palestinians have a responsibility."

The Saudi minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, told reporters after the meeting: "We were particularly pleased and happy that he told us that peace would only come if all sides take their responsibilities seriously."

In fact, they were given nothing. But Prince al-Faisal was pleased, because diplomacy is always a success. No matter what happens, it was successful. You just have to be sufficiently creative in finding things to point at, and this is what he found.

What the Saudi minister didn't understand is that the "Palestinian responsibility" is to make the first move so as to prove that they are trustworthy. The "Israeli responsibility" is to react to that, but only after the Palestinians make the first move.

That, alone, would not really have been noteworthy. What was truly strange was what Prince Saud al-Faisal said afterwards:

Saudi Arabia's foreign minister warned on Thursday the Middle East would end in tragedy if Israeli Prime Minister Ari