Bush's position after 9/11 was against terrorism from all sources, and against all nations which harbored them.

Now he is forcing himself to somehow "undefine" the Palestinian leadership as being either terrorist or as supporting terrorism. Maybe "waffling" is a poor choice of words. Any better suggestions?

But of course, according to the current rules of engagement, Palestinians aren't really terrorists. Or at least, Israelis are just as bad. Total moral equivalence. I disagree.

Palestinians, with the full and documented support of Arafat and other Palestinian leaders, have been deliberately placing bombs in civilian areas and deliberately killing noncombatant civilians. Anyone who defines this as anything but terrorism is a dolt. If Israel was playing by these same rules, there would be no Israeli military casualties because the Israelis would have stood back over the horizon and erased the Palestinian villages with bombs and artillery, or flooded the West Bank with nerve gas. Instead, like Americans in Afghanistan, they are trying to go in personally at great risk and weed out the terrorists from the population. Of course, noncombatant Palestinians are being killed and injured--but this is not the intended mission of the Israeli Army.

If you find this action equivalent to the deliberate, planned murder of noncombatants, fine. There's no getting through to you.

The objective of this entire exercise is what it has been since the 1940s: the Arabic nations trying to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. Before 1967, they were happy to field their own armies to this purpose. In more recent years, they have discovered that using the Palestinians as cannon fodder to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth while laying back in luxury (that no Palestinian will ever see) and pretending that they're interested in peace and harmony. Much cheaper, much more politically expedient. Okay, every so often send a ship full of guns or something or some cash to bombers' families, but how risky is that?

In the process, the Palestinians have become darlings of the leftists around the world, which is an unexpected bonus, but is being well-exploited.

Trying to evade the obvious facts in this matter is what is going to sink Bush, Powell, and the rest into the same muck as all of their predecessors. And this is just fine with a lot of people too.