President's Speech Is Criticized for Lacking Specific Proposals
The Arab world, hoping for a detailed American proposal for peace and a Palestinian state, instead found a speech short on a specific timetable and long on demands for Palestinian reform.

"You cannot put his speech down on the negotiating table and make a plan out of it — we will implement this tomorrow and this the next day," said Jamal Khashoggi, an editor and columnist at the Arab News daily. "He just completely adopted the Israeli analysis of the situation, that it is terror forcing them to maintain the occupation, not that occupation is leading to terrorism."

Few in the Arab world believed President Bush's speech went far enough in offering the kind of incentives needed to stem the rising violence and death toll on both sides.

In his speech, Mr. Bush demanded that Israel cease building settlements in Gaza and the West Bank and eventually pull back to the boundaries prior to the 1967 war. Mr. Bush said he envisioned a provisional Palestinian state until full, permanent statehood could be achieved, perhaps in three years.

However, Arab governments have in recent days rejected the idea of a provisional state attached to only a vague timetable.

Mr. Bush gave his speech just before midnight in the Arab world and because the region's leaders are in the habit of consulting with each other before speaking publicly, there was little official reaction.

Some analysts noted that in the absence of more concrete American promises to the Palestinians on how the occupation might end, even transparent elections now in the Palestinian territories would likely only produce a leadership far more radical and confrontational than the Palestinian leader, Yasir Arafat.
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/25/international/middleeast/25ARAB.html