“Hopes for Peace Diminished” read the headline over the front-page Washington Post story reporting on the resignation of the Palestinian Arab prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen. We’ve got a different point of view: Back on March 10, 2003, in an editorial headlined, “The Abu Mazen Myth,” we wrote that President Bush was right in his June 24, 2002, speech when he said peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership. “Abu Mazen isn’t it,” we said back in March. So, to our mind, Mr. Abbas’s departure actually raises the hopes for peace and the chances that America and Israel will start to deal with a genuinely new Palestinian Arab leadership untainted by terror.

There’s a risk, of course, that Mr. Bush will fall for the same gambit he fell for with Abu Mazen, and begin dealing with an Arafat crony paraded about as a genuine reformer. The latest in this mode is Ahmed Qurei, also known as Abu Ala.

Mr. Qurei was head of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction at a time when it was widely and justifiably criticized as a nest of corrupt financial cronyism. A dispatch by Charles Sennott in the Boston Globe quoted at least a half dozen anonymous sources as saying Mr. Qurei had financial ties to the Al Quds Cement factory. A former Israeli diplomat, Yoram Ettinger, describes Mr. Qurei as a co-owner of cigarette and dairy monopolies.

There’s nothing wrong with businessmen, but the businesses owned by or linked to Arafat cronies and PLO officials are crowding out private enterprise and economic growth in the West Bank and Gaza. A disillusioned population then turns to the Islamic fundamentalists, who are motivated by religious fanaticism rather than greed. It’s strange that the liberals making such a stink about Halliburton’s contracts in Iraq are so silent when it comes to the PLO’s genuine cronyism.

As for Mr. Qurei’s independence from Mr. Arafat — well, Mr. Qurei was appointed by Mr. Arafat. And Mr. Qurei was quoted as recently as June, in an Al-Nahar interview translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute, as saying that, “It is not possible to make peace without Arafat playing the main part.”

Mr. Bush Monday night spoke eloquently of the new free and democratic leaders emerging in Iraq. There is no reason that a similar group could not emerge in the West Bank and Gaza were Mr. Bush to insist on ousting the current unelected leadership of terrorists and self-dealers. He pledged to do so back in June of 2002; what remains is for him to follow through. If he does, hopes for peace will be increased.