And the view that the two crises are malignantly linked found forceful corroboration in a surprising quarter. In a report flatly contradicting Bush administration orthodoxy, the Pentagon's Defense Science Board said Washington's problems in Iraq and elsewhere arose not from Muslims' hatred of American freedoms but of its policies and "what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights."

To Arabs and Muslims, this discovery is less than Archimedean. For them, it has always been self-evident: The Palestine problem, a legacy of Western colonialism as virulent today as it ever was, has always been the greatest single source of anti-Western sentiment in the region. So if terrorism now ranks as the greatest single contemporary threat to global order, and if Iraq is its most profitable arena, Palestine must have a great deal to do with it.

As I noted before, Amer Taheri who actually spoke to a number of Arabs around the Middle East. He did not get a strong sense that Arabs considered the Palestinian issue was central to most Arabs. It was important to the leadership of the Arab world.
Furthermore there seems to be movement in the Arab world for reform regardless of progress on the Palestinian front. Even Thomas Friedman noted that the cause of reform - without excuses - is picking up steam in the Arab world.
What Hirst really wants is not peace, but a return excuse making.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.