Martin Indyk’s plan to put parts of the West Bank and Gaza under an American-led trusteeship was big news in yesterday’s New York Sun. An article outlining the scenario appears in the May-June issue of Foreign Affairs. The proposal is likely to attract more attention as it becomes clear that Abu Mazen, the new Palestinian “prime minister,” is part of Yasser Arafat’s old PLO gang, and as President Bush’s attempt to impose a “road map” on Israel and the Palestinian Arabs fails, as it almost certainly will.

There are plenty of problems with the Indyk plan, but at least two are so glaring as to undermine the whole thing, in our view. The first, as outlined in Mr. Indyk’s Foreign Affairs article, is that “Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan” would provide “training of the Palestinian security services.” This, according to Mr. Indyk, “would ensure that Western methods were effectively adapted to Arab culture.” There, in one chilling clause, is encapsulated the entire patronizing, condescending attitude of American peace processors. As if “Arab culture” somehow had a special need to be policed by security forces with the Egyptian or Saudi government’s disregard for human rights, democracy, freedom, and rule of law.

One could be against Saudi or Egyptian involvement in training the security forces without necessarily being against the entire idea of a trusteeship. Queried about the matter, Mr. Indyk emphasized that the training would be under the overall supervision of America. Still, including the idea of Saudi or Egyptian training of a security force that would essentially be an American, post-September 11 creation strikes us as showing that certain lessons have not been learned.

The other problem we see with the Indyk plan is perhaps even graver. It is that final-status negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs would go forward even while the trusteeship — that is, America and a few allies like Canada, Australia, and Great Britain — was in charge of rooting out terrorism and eliminating anti-Israel incitement from the Palestinian public schools and controlled press. Queried on which Palestinian Arabs would be doing the negotiating, Mr. Indyk mentioned the same PLO henchmen who have been doing the negotiating for Yasser Arafat for a decade. In other words, people with no true democratic mandate and no proven track record of fighting terror ism, delivering security to Israel, or providing freedom or honest, representative government to the Palestinian Arabs. There may be an argument for America and its allies invading the West Bank and Gaza to root out terrorism and help build a free democracy there. But asking Israel to simultaneously negotiate a deal to give a state to the same gang of terrorists who America and its allies are invading to kick out strikes us as befogged.