President Bush tells it like it is ... and I say, "Three cheers!"

President Bush really laid it on Israel this week and gave what I consider to be his best speech ever. It was on Monday and I almost missed it while I was trying to figure out how to listen to the Senate's Iraq debate (yawn) when I ran into a replay of a speech he had given only hours earlier.

He essentially stated that we believe that Palestine can coexist with Israel and they can have peace!

By allowing for America (that's us!) to sit with both Palestine and Israel in the person of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, he has broken with almost everything he has said on the subject in recent years. Specifically, he plans a major conference this fall, chaired by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, that would include Israelis, Palestinians and Arab governments, including those of Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt. Hamas, the militant Islamist Palestinian group that controls Gaza, is not invited.

Obviously, peace between Israel and the Palestinians is not going to be easily accomplished. Excluding Hamas from the process, as both Israel and Bush agreed to do, and dealing solely with the more pacifist Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah group, is understandable. Given Hamas's violence and its sworn enmity toward Israel's existence, it would have been difficult for GWB to suggest they be involved in the early meetings.

But it's also sticky. Hamas grabbed control of Gaza last month in a military takeover, and Fatah controls the West Bank. Abhorrent as Hamas is, it is an inconvenient truth (thanks, Al Gore!) that last year Hamas was democratically chosen over Fatah to lead the Palestinians. Some U.S. allies worry that freezing out Hamas will push it further into the camp of Iran and Syria.

That is surely a possibility, but the march towards peace has at least begun.

Three cheers to you and your State Department, Mr. Bush!