It was indeed the same used for every previous Bush foreign policy utterance. The American President draws a line in the sand: with us or with the terrorists, war in Afghanistan, axis of evil, etc. The Europeans express grave reservations: if only the world were so simple, cycle of violence, the Arab street, etc. And Canada agrees with both.

So it was again. Mr. Bush committed the United States to support the creation of a Palestinian state, not in principle, subject to negotiations, sometime in the far-off future, but as a real, if provisional, entity, on a three-year timetable. This is further than any U.S.

president has been willing to go before.

But he attached a condition: The Palestinians must elect "new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror." That did not only mean ousting Yasser Arafat, as the headlines had it, in next year's presidential election: It meant systematic reform of the territory's corrupt and dictatorial government, the Palestinian Authority, that the existing terrorist state might be transformed into one that is democratic, prosperous, law-abiding -- and a serious partner in peace negotiations.

Immediately, the press went into diplomatic rift-watch. They were not disappointed.

European leaders, cooped up in the Canadian Rockies with Mr. Bush at the G8 summit this week, were said to be unhappy. Mr. Bush was making an impossible demand of the Palestinians. He was contradictory, with one breath demanding democratic elections yet with the other prejudging who they might elect. He was only encouraging the Palestinians to vote for Mr. Arafat out of sheer obstinacy -- or, worse, to elect somebody more "extreme." And Canada? "The President talks about perhaps it would be better to replace Mr Arafat.

I don't have a specific point of view on that. I think it might be a good thing," Jean Chretien said Tuesday, after meeting with Mr. Bush. Meanwhile, his Foreign Minister was talking out of the other side of his mouth. "We do not believe that we would say who is going to be the leader of the Palestinians," Bill Graham sniffed to the Globe and Mail, which echoed his thoughts (or was it theirs?) in an accompanying editorial: "It is up to the Palestinian people to decide for themselves when Mr. Arafat's time is up." The Prime Minister's staff and various Foreign Affairs flunkies spent the next couple of days trying to spin away the split, but they needn't have bothered: vague ambiguity or ambiguous vagueness, it's still the same old Canadian fence-sitting. Mr. Chretien and Mr.

Graham are the Ambiguously Vague Duo.

I realize that the sole principle guiding Canadian foreign policy for many years has been how to distance ourselves as far as we can from the Americans without them noticing.

But since eventually the world, including Canada, comes around to the American position anyway -- we did support them in Afghanistan, just as one day we will support them in Iraq -- we might spare ourselves some time and embarrassment by actually looking at what the President had to say. (Mr. Chretien, on the eve of a major international conference, claimed not to have been briefed on it. For once he might be telling the truth.)

Has Mr. Bush, as advertised, tilted too far in the Israeli direction? Has he placed the Palestinians in an impossible position? Has he asked them for the moon?

His speech, as I read it, committed the United States to do eight things. It committed Israel, on its behalf -- and do not think that, when the time came, the United States could not deliver -- to eight more. It asked the Palestinians to do just one: Elect somebody other than a terrorist as their leader.

On behalf of the United States, the President promised to: - support the creation of a Palestinian state; - help draft a new constitution for a "working democracy for the Palestinian people"; - help organize local and national elections; - help bring market-oriented reforms to Palestine's economy; - oversee a cleanup of the Palestinian Authority's finances, - increase humanitarian aid; - help establish and finance an independent judiciary and; - help rebuild and reform the Palestinian security services.

On behalf of Israel, he committed his presidency to achieving: - the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the West Bank; - an end to Israeli settlement activity; - freedom of movement for Palestinian workers across border checkpoints; - the release of frozen Palestinian revenues, and; - an end to "the Israeli occupation that began in 1967," which would imply a withdrawal to something near to 1967 borders, a key Arab and Palestinian demand.

In addition, he committed to negotiations on: - Jerusalem; - "the plight and future of Palestinian refugees," and; - final peace treaties with Lebanon and Syria.

And in return for all this; in return for land, and peace and aid; in return for democracy and freedom and prosperity; in return for a state of their own, whole and secure, with Israel's signature on the deal -- in return, Mr. Bush has the temerity to ask the Palestinians for a signal that this is in fact what they want. They can elect whoever they want, of course, even Mr. Arafat. But they can't expect the same package of goodies if they do.

Israel wants peace: Whatever else its critics may say of it, of that there can be no doubt.

But it cannot be expected to negotiate with a leader who manifestly wants nothing of the kind -- a leader who, even as late as last week was, according to U.S. intelligence, financing the very suicide bombers he had lately made such show of condemning. Arafat reportedly paid more than US$20,000 to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade after last week's bus bombing, in which six Israelis were killed.

For their part, Palestinians might until now have been wary of commiting to negotiations, not knowing where they would lead. Israel now occupies every major city in the West Bank, and might be thought to have less incentive to make concessions. But Mr. Bush has made it very clear where negotiations will lead: a Palestinian state. Palestinians now have a tangible reward for negotiating.

But they must, as a precondition, forswear terrorism. And as a token of good faith, they must forswear being led by terrorists. If they truly want to live in peace, they have to show a belief in peace. Surely even the government of Canada can understand that.