What does it mean when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says it is time to establish a Palestinian state within a year, for the sake of Palestinian, Israeli and US national interests, and that, "We are not going to tire until I have given my last ounce of energy and my last moment in office" to working for a two-state solution?

There is an unreal yet intriguing quality to America's newfound enthusiasm for an instant Palestinian state. That is a welcomed goal - if it is sincere. Rice's first big problem is that few people in the Middle East believe the United States is sincere, because every aspect of Washington's policies during the past seven years has flatly contradicted everything President George W. Bush and Rice have stated rhetorically about their commitment to creating a Palestinian state.

They seem not to realize that they are now finally paying the price for years of disdain and neglect of Palestinian and Arab rights, in favor of supporting Israeli positions. The US haughtily gambled on getting away with nice words that gravely contradict its destructive policies on the ground. Consequently, most in the Middle East no longer believe the US, respect its policies, or fear its power. Anyone who cares to live in the real world can observe this in the defiant behavior of Iran, Syria, Turkey, Hizbullah, Hamas and many other states or popular mass movements that probably comprise 75 percent of the people of this region.

This is not the first time that American presidents and Israeli prime ministers have tried to salvage their damaged reputations by pulling an Arab-Israeli peace rabbit out of the hat at the last minute. It will not work, just as it did not work in the past.

Durable peace accords and Palestinian states cannot be ordered like a late-night pizza to meet an urgent physical or emotional craving by slightly disoriented college boys. If the US suddenly decides it needs Arab partners to help it get out of its mess throughout the Middle East, it will not get them by a change of rhetoric without a change in policy that sheds its years of contempt and disregard for Palestinian and Arab rights.

Washington would be more convincing if it were to commit to the known elements of a negotiated peace that are firmly grounded in United Nations resolutions and international law. A consistent American affirmation of the illegal and destructive nature of Israeli settlements and land expropriations, for example, would be a much more effective way to secure Arab respect and diplomatic cooperation than the Bush-Rice policy of supporting in writing former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's colonialist policies on settlements and refugees, and then standing by current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's perpetuation of those positions.

The Arab people, and perhaps even a few leaders, are totally fed up with being asked to play the role of the rabbit that is pulled out of the hat by American illusionists. Remarkably, Washington and others still have not grasped perhaps the single most important strategic change that has occurred in the Arab world in the past generation: many, perhaps most, Arabs and their political movements have crossed the threshold of fear and passive acquiescence to the power of the US, Israel and entrenched Arab regimes. The US is happy to laud and ride this phenomenon when, say, Lebanese citizens rally against Syria; but it refuses to see the same defiant spirit among many more Arabs who rally against the US itself.

Through a combination of Islamist, resistance, nationalist, tribal, sectarian, ethnic, revivalist, democratic and other indigenous movements, most ordinary Arab men and women now behave in a totally different manner than the three generations since the birth of the modern Arab world around 1920: They refuse to bow to foreign ultimatums and threats; refuse to cringe in fear at American, Israeli or British military attacks; refuse to waste time sending petitions to Western leaders asking them to adhere to global rights norms; and refuse to play smoke-and-mirror games designed in the US, Israel , or the United Kingdom.

Most Arabs refuse to be treated like rabbits to be pulled out of an American conjurer's hat on demand, late at night after an ideological orgy, when the conjurer is dazed and wants only to get through the next day, or a last year in office. Grasping this fact and designing a peace process that is equitable and anchored in law, not illusionary and driven by colonial mindsets and power imbalances, is the right way to get to both a Palestinian state and Israel's secure acceptance in the Middle East