Kerry pays the proper lip service to Israel's fight against the terrorists, but his support is not something the Jews can count on. He has both attacked and supported the Israeli security fence that has dramatically cut back Palestinian terrorism.
"The Israelis know more about terrorism than anyone else because they have suffered more from it than anyone else," he said recently, "which is one reason we must always stand by their side." But the United Nations General Assembly, where he says he can find new objects of affection all sublime, condemned the fence as illegal with a vote of 150 to 6.
In our own country, anti-Semitism has expanded with the expansion of Middle Eastern politics on our college campuses. The campus of Columbia University is buzzing about a new underground documentary film that identifies anti-Semitism on the Columbia campus. In one scene, a professor of Arab politics sneers at an Israeli student who had recently served in the Israeli Air Force: "How many Palestinians have you killed?"
Duke University hosted a Palestine Solidarity Movement conference where students refused to condemn violence against innocent Israeli civilians, and chanted "divest from apartheid Israel." In the wake of the conference, the editors of the Chronicle, a student newspaper, printed a column by a Duke senior decrying Jewish "privilege" - asserting that Jews are "over represented" on American campuses. Only the na? believe that anti-Zionism, anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism are not connected.
George W. Bush is regarded here and abroad as the best friend in the White House that Israel has ever had. It's usually not meant as a compliment.
But the election is about America, not Israel, and it's na? to think that the war against terror in the Middle East requires anything less than a tough and irresolute defense of Israel. Discouraging and dismantling terrorist groups against Israel means diminishing terrorist groups against America. We have a responsibility to elect the best man who can do that.