Ari Shavit, Haaretz: George Bush defined his truth concerning the Holy Land on June 24, 2002. The political speech he delivered that day was the most important of all his speeches. The statement he made in that speech was the most penetrating international statement about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This was the essence of that statement: The solution to the 100-year-old conflict is a two-state solution, but before the two-state solution is implemented a Palestinian conversion must take place. Only after the Palestinian people undergo a conceptual, ideological and institutional conversion will it be possible to establish a Palestinian state that will exist alongside Israel in peace and prosperity. So when President Bush looks at Jerusalem this morning, the question he should ask himself is whether he has remained faithful to his truth.

Haim Misgav, Yetnews.com: The president currently serving in the White House can continue preparing his smooth retirement on our backs, but we must learn from history; from what happened to the glorious Czech people on the even of Word War II. Cynical politicians (at the time it was the British prime minister, who was apparently a naïve and not too bright individual) sought to achieve peace for generations to come at the cost of selling off Czechoslovakia to the Germans. Today, we see his American duplicate playing with the lives and fate of small nations.

Massimo Calabrese, Time: Bush capped the two days of talks Thursday evening with a restatement of U.S. goals for a peace deal as well as encouragement for both sides to pursue talks. But if it hasn’t been already obvious, Bush’s trip to Israel and the West Bank this week has made one thing abundantly clear: the Israelis and Palestinians aren’t making peace anytime soon. Israel is as resistant to basic peace process concessions as it has always been and the Palestinians are alternately weak or violent, depending on which part of their territory you look at.

Isi Liebler, The Jerusalem Post: President Bush is a true friend of Israel. In contrast to his predecessors, once he recognized the evil and duplicitous nature of Yasser Arafat, he severed relations and effectively marginalized him. He also brought to an end the era of moral equivalency during which Palestinian murderers and Israeli victims were both regarded as equal components of a senseless cycle of violence. In addition, Bush endorsed Israel’s right to defensible borders and became the first Western leader to state that when boundaries are finalized, demographic facts on the ground will need to be taken into account – a clear endorsement for Israeli retention of the major settlement blocs. And at Annapolis, despite all its ambivalences, the president unequivocally reiterated that Israel is a “Jewish state,” bluntly contradicting the Palestinians, who vowed that they would never come to terms with a Jewish entity.

David Swanson, After Downing Street: Bush’s current visit to the Middle East, despite the official central message of supporting an Israeli-Palestinian peace process, has far more to do with Iran. That is not a secret; the lead article in Israel’s leading daily, Ha’aretz, describing the Bush meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Olmert, begins “Iran’s nuclear program was at the center of the closed door meeting between Bush and Olmert.” Israel rejects the findings of the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate released last month that found that Iran does not have a nuclear weapons program and does not necessarily even want one. In spite of that, Olmert told Bush, “our unequivocal conclusion is that they [the Iranians] are busy developing nuclear weapons.”

Jeb Koogler, The Moderate Voice: As The Daily Star snidely comments, Bush’s efforts at peace in Israel-Palestine are “as likely to succeed as the efforts of a lazy student who whittles away an entire semester in fraternity halls before cramming at the last minute for final exams.” It’s hard to argue with that. Indeed, despite our president’s naive prediction of a peace deal by the end of his term, Bush’s visit clearly isn’t being taken very seriously. The Israelis, for their part, have been boldly building up settlements on the eve of the president’s arrival.