President Bush was eloquent Wednesday night when he spoke of the potential benefits of freedom and democracy for the people of Iraq. It was nice to see him shifting the focus of his rhetoric from disarmament to democratization. But when it came to the existing free democracy in the Middle East — Israel — Mr. Bush struck a jarring and disappointing note.

“For its part, the new government of Israel — as the terror threat is removed and security improves — will be expected to support the creation of a viable Palestinian state and to work as quickly as possible toward a final status agreement,” Mr. Bush said. “As progress is made toward peace, settlement activity in the occupied territories must end.”

This is dangerous language. What does he mean by “as the terror threat is removed and security improves”? Until now, every American-backed and Israeli-backed peace plan, from Oslo to the Mitchell plan, envisioned the creation of a Palestinian state only after the terror threat is removed and security improves. Mr. Bush’s new formulation — “as” — suggests Israel should negotiate under fire, so long as the fire is getting less frequent. Mr. Bush’s reference to “the occupied territories” suggests Israel is occupying someone else’s land. In fact, by both biblical standards and the standards of international law, Israel has a better claim to the lands of the West Bank than anyone, including the Palestinian Arabs.

Mr. Bush went on Wednesday night to say, “The United States and other nations are working on a road map for peace. We are setting out the necessary conditions for progress toward the goal of two states, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. It is the commitment of our government — and my personal commitment — to implement the road map and to reach that goal.” This, too, violates long-established precedents and the hard lessons of history. Peace can only work if it is reached between the parties, not imposed by America.

When Mr. Bush was running for president, he said as much. “There can be no lasting peace if the Israelis, for whatever reason, feel like they must accept an agreement because it makes us happy,” Mr. Bush said, according to a September 6, 2000, dispatch of the Associated Press that his campaign quoted in a mailing to Jewish voters. In the October 17, 2000, debate with Vice President Gore, Mr. Bush said, “We can’t put the Middle East peace process on our timetable. It’s got to be on the timetable of the people that we’re trying to bring to the peace table. We can’t dictate the terms of peace.”

Said Mr. Bush’s campaign foreign policy adviser, Condoleezza Rice, on August 15, 2000, “No one can impose an agreement.” She’s now the national security adviser, who must have had a read of Mr. Bush’s speech before it was given.

Now, there may be a difference between a “road map” and a “timetable,” and between “setting out” or “must” and “dictate” or “impose.” If there is such a difference, it strikes us as hair-splitting. A lot of people voted for Mr. Bush in the hope that he would be less likely to engage in this sort of hair-splitting than, say, President Clinton’s vice president would be.

“Old patterns of conflict in the Middle East can be broken, if all concerned will let go of bitterness, hatred, and violence, and get on with the serious work of economic development and political reform and reconciliation,” Mr. Bush said in his speech Wednesday night.

The conceit there is that it is Israelis as much as Arabs who need to “let go of bitterness, hatred, and violence.” In fact, it’s the Arab violence that is the source of the vast majority of these emotions. Without making that clear, Mr. Bush is engaging in a kind of false moral equivalence. He sounds like a French person telling Mr. Bush and Saddam Hussein that we need to “let go of bitterness, hatred, and violence.” With Israel and the Arabs, as with Mr. Bush and Iraq, it’s not about bitterness and hatred, it’s about self-defense.

If and when a free, democratic, and responsible Palestinian Arab leadership arises — and there’s no reason for it to happen before then — Israel will be faced with some wrenching choices. It will have to decide about the future of neighborhoods within its capital, Jerusalem, and about the future of land in Judea and Samaria that is both strategically important to Israel’s defense and of historic and religious importance to the Jewish people. Those choices will be easier for Israel — and the chance of a lasting and secure peace greater — if the Israelis make them while dealing with the policies of the George W. Bush who was campaigning in 2000, not the George W. Bush who spoke at the American Enterprise Institute’s dinner Wednesday and mouthed words tangled up in the errors of the peace process of the past.