Resident Fellow  David Frum

"The establishment of the state of Palestine is long overdue. The Palestinian people deserve it."

"[A Palestinian state] will enhance the stability of the region, and it will contribute to the security of the people of Israel."

"The peace agreement should happen, and can happen, by the end of this year."

So said President Bush after a long day of talks on Thursday, speaking to reporters in the King David Hotel, in Jerusalem.

These words ended a long and astonishing day, in which George W. Bush committed himself more fully and personally to the Palestinian cause than any previous president. At a press conference earlier that same day, standing alongside Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas, Bush said:

"I'm confident that two democratic states living side by side in peace is in the interests not only of the Palestinians and the Israelis, but of the world. The question is whether or not the hard issues can be resolved and the vision emerges, so that the choice is clear amongst the Palestinians--the choice being, do you want this state, or do you want the status quo? Do you want a future based upon a democratic state, or do you want the same old stuff? And that's a choice that I'm confident that if the Palestinian people are given, they will choose peace."

Now, if you read carefully, you'll see that George Bush has worked to leave himself some wriggle room. He has said that a peace treaty "can" and "should" happen--not that it "will." He has stated his personal "confidence" that the Palestinians will make a choice for peace--i.e., only an opinion, nothing more.

But as I said, to discover those escape hatches, you have to look carefully. Listen less than carefully, and what you'll hear is, well, this: - "Bush: Mideast peace by year's end."--ABC News.com - "Bush predicts peace treaty."--Associated Press - "Bush expects to see Palestinian state before he leaves office."--USA Today - "Bush ends holy land visit predicting peace deal."--Agence France Presse

Bush has staked much of the prestige and credibility of the United States--and all the energy of his final year in office--to a renewed Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Despite the escape hatches, he will not now easily be able to wriggle free. If it fails, he fails.

So, question: Is there any reason to think that the process will not fail?

Bill Clinton devoted his last months in office to the same quest on which George Bush has now embarked. Intense negotiation sessions ended in futility--and ultimately in Yasser Arafat's second intifada of October, 2000. Clinton offered Arafat a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza, a slice of Jerusalem, resettlement of some Palestinian refugees inside Israel, and large cash assistance. Arafat chose war rather than accept.

President Bush is now pressing Arafat's successor to accept the deal Arafat violently rejected. Can Abbas do it?

The signs are unpromising. The Palestinian side continues to demand both a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza--and also the right of Palestinians to migrate to and colonize Israel proper. This is the so-called Palestinian "right of return"--and it explains why Palestinian negotiater Saeb Erekat fiercely rejected Israel's December, 2007, request that they acknowledge Israel as a Jewish state.

In any peace process, Israel will have to concede territory, water and other hard material benefits. In exchange, Israel seeks only one thing: full and true peace, acceptance by its neighbours, recognition as a normal state entitled to define itself as its citizens decide.

But even this one thing is more than any Palestinian leader can afford to concede. They have said it again and again: Israel as a Jewish state can expect no peace. As the old joke goes, the Middle East peace process is all process, no peace. And as President Bush will discover to his frustration, that is just the way his Palestinian counterparts want it. Or, maybe, they do not want it that way exactly--they just know that they cannot survive any other way.

So the President is being invited to focus his dwindling time in office on a doomed enterprise. It will do him no good--and divert his energies away from areas where they could do good. He may believe that by promising some kind of grand plan for Palestine, he will win support from the Gulf Arabs for action against Iran. He is more likely to find that action against Iran is now hostage to a grand plan for Palestine.

The Middle East peace process is a failure machine, a puzzle without an answer, a maze without a centre. The only way to win is not to play.

David Frum is a resident fellow at AEI.