Dean's Mideast dementia

New York Daily News: Recently, presidential contender Howard Dean broke with more than a half-century of bipartisan American foreign policy with a shrill announcement that the U.S. shouldn't "take sides" between Israel and the Arab terrorists who seek to destroy the Jewish state.
"I don't believe stopping the terror has to be a prerequisite for talking," declared the Vermont Democrat. "I don't find it convenient to blame people. Nobody should have violence, ever. But they do, and it's not our place to take sides."
So few sentences, so much wrong-headededness. Here's a man fundamentally unable to grasp the dynamics of how the Middle East -- or the world, for that matter -- works. Dean, in effect, equated terrorism with combating it. That's like equating crime with policing, arson with fighting fires. What was he thinking?
Armed response
Of course terror must be ended before any peace negotiations can begin. Terrorists, be they Hamas or al-Qaeda, are the ones properly to blame for the slaughter. Armed response to terror is always justified. Israel, like the United States, is a peaceful, democratic, life-affirming nation. Of course it is our place to take Israel's side in this struggle.
For the people of Israel this is not just a political debating point. They are facing life or death, and America must support their actions, like yesterday's fully justified vote of Israel's security cabinet to remove Yasser Arafat from the scene. We wonder what Dean has to say about this.
Throwing Israel over the side by abandoning a courageous and principled stand held by every President from Harry Truman to George W. Bush is a shameful way to troll for votes. Any weakening in U.S. support for Israel would surely embolden Israel's many enemies very quickly.