[...]"I destroyed a terrorist state in Afghanistan, I destroyed a terrorist state in Iraq and I am not about to help create a terrorist state" on Israel's borders, the president is said to have told aides in discussions about security guarantees that Israel needs for peace.

But a paradox develops: At this highest crest of acceptance of a two-state solution since 1947 -- when Israel adopted the original U.N. partition but Arabs did not -- Arab leaders are increasingly edging away from openly recognizing Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state.

That retreat is largely disguised and conducted in diplomatic code. It nonetheless feeds separate tides of anti-Israeli resentment and anti-Semitic hatred of Jews that are rising and fusing in Europe, potentially in the United States and elsewhere. Such behavior does not summon peace to the Middle East.

Arab leaders who met with Bush in Egypt on Tuesday did so on the condition that Israel was excluded. Earlier, Palestinian negotiators told journalists they had turned down a proposed joint communique with the Israelis because of proposed language that could be interpreted as endorsing Israel's existence as a Jewish state.[...]