Jerusalem ? If the Palestinians held elections today, it is unlikely that they would kick out their current leadership, as President Bush envisioned in a speech given Monday.

Instead, polls suggest that Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat would win re-election with an overwhelming mandate, extending his long leadership over the Palestinian people and their cause.

And if Arafat were somehow removed from the political arena if he died, voluntarily stepped aside or was expelled by the Israelis free elections could produce a more radical Palestinian leadership even less accommodating to Israel’s wish.

Bush’s prescription for peace in the Middle East, as outlined in the speech, called for the Palestinian people to “elect new leaders, leaders not compromised by terror” in order to make peace with Israel. The approach, with its boundless faith in the democratic process, is classically American, not unlike peace plans championed by the United States in other trouble spots such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and Afghanistan.

But political pundits here, both Palestinian and Israeli, maintained Tuesday that Bush’s scenario has little chance of ending the 21-month wave of violence that has claimed more than 2,000 lives.

“Arafat will be re-elected, no doubt about it. That is the reality that we have to deal with,” said Israeli political columnist Danny Rubinstein.

Even before Bush’s speech, Arafat had promised that elections would be held no later than early 2003. During a meeting Tuesday with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin in the West Bank city of Ramallah, Arafat confirmed that plans were being drawn up for presidential and legislative elections in January, municipal elections in March.

Earlier in the day, Arafat aide Saeb Erekat said that elections would be held those months, but that the dates had not been finalized because of the inability of the Palestinian leadership to meet due to curfews imposed by the Israeli military in the West Bank.

These elections will be “democratic, democratic, democratic,” Arafat said, speaking with reporters after the meeting with the French foreign minister. He rejected the suggestion that Bush’s call for new leadership was a personal attack on him-Bush did not mention Arafat by name in the speech-but stressed that the Palestinian people alone would pick their leadership.

“It will be decided by my people and no one else,” Arafat said.

Many Palestinians said Bush’s call for “new and different” leadership for the Palestinian Authority is another instance of Uncle Sam putting a fat thumb on the scale in favor of Israel.

“If (Bush) wants a genuine democracy in Palestine he should do everything possible to remove the obstacles, including the (Israeli) siege and (targeted) assassinations,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a well-known member of the Palestinian Legislative Council. “Then it is up to the Palestinians to change their government or keep their government. New leadership as a precondition is a nonstarter. … Suppose we have elections and choose the same leaders? Does he want us to have rigged elections?”