No sooner had the body count been toted up in the London transit terrorist attacks than President Bush and his colleagues in the G-8 turned around and pledged $3 billion in aid to the Palestinian Authority.

That’s an ironical act. For had the G-8 leaders decided to respond to the London attacks with a retaliatory strike on the capital of a state sponsor of terror – say, Syria – they might have flattened the very Palestinian Arab leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to whom this aid will be funneled.

It turns out that while Mr. Bush and his colleagues were talking tough against the terrorists and watching the death toll rise, Mr. Abbas, a longtime aide to Yasser Arafat, spent the day of the London bombing in Damascus. There he was cozying up to the terrorist-supporting Baathist dictator, while also reportedly trying to persuade the Palestinian Arab terrorist groups Damascus hosts – Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and co.- to join his government.

It’s not as if Washington’s disgust with Damascus could have been any secret to Mr. Abbas. Senator McCain warned on NBC’s “Meet the Press” late last month that “the Syrians are serving as a conduit for a lot of foreign people coming into Iraq.” He said, “We have to put additional pressures on Syria.” Secretary of State Rice, in her speech June 20 in Cairo, said, “The case of Syria is especially serious, because as its neighbors embrace democracy and political reform, Syria continues to harbor or directly support groups committed to violence – in Lebanon, and in Israel, and Iraq, and in the Palestinian territories.” On June 30, the Treasury Department ordered a freeze on the assets in American financial institutions of two senior Syrian intelligence officials who had operated for Syria in Lebanon. Treasury Secretary Snow said, “Actions like today’s are intended to financially isolate bad actors supporting Syria’s efforts to destabilize its neighbors.”

If Mr. Abbas succeeds in bringing Hamas, which is committed to Israel’s destruction, into his government, the effect might at least be to disabuse some American officials about his ultimate intentions. There’s a case to be made for trying to include the radical Islamists in a peaceful political process, along the Jordanian model, as opposed to trying unsuccessfully to repress them, along the Egyptian model. But the decisions about who will govern the Palestinian Authority rightfully belong to its residents deciding in free and fair elections, not in deals brokered in the dens of Damascus.

As it is, Mr. Abbas is negotiating with the Islamists from a position of weakness. He postponed elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council, set for July 17, because Hamas looked set to trounce his Fatah Party. When faced with possible election loss, like any Middle East autocrat, he simply scrapped the elections. They were originally postponed indefinitely, though he has now said they’ll take place January 20, 2006. There is nothing stopping him, however, from postponing them again, and again. Mr. Abbas is in this weak position because he remains corrupt and authoritarian, just like Arafat. Palestinian Arabs are tired of this type of rule, leaving Hamas to promote themselves, by terrorizing Palestinians, as the only visible alternative to voters.

Mr. Bush, in his famous Rose Garden speech of June 24, 2002, called on the Palestinian Arabs “to elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror. “That remains good advice now in respect of Mr. Abbas. If Mr. Bush and the G-8 want to spend $3 billion on the Palestinian Arabs, without having it being used for airfare to parleys with terrorists in Damascus, they could give the money to non-Abbas, non-Hamas Palestinians for democratic institutions such as independent political parties, newspapers, law schools, radio and television stations, banks, and human rights watchdog groups. Otherwise it’s just the Arafat era all over again. And an insult to the victims of the London bombings.