Reply #14: I really don't believe that we have been evenhanded in the past

[tishaLA]

I think we have always had a thumb on the scale in favor of Israel. Bush's policy about Israel is awful, though, and I was shocked to see Kerry not criticize the bombing. I understand there are things he has to say for "electability"--hell, he even had to backtrack from some of his "inflammatory" or "incendiary" language from 1971--and I understand intellectually why he has to say it's OK to kill terrorists....but damn. Couldn't he have said that the assassination was surely counterproductive, even though he understands it, because it will heighten tensions at a time when Israel and the Palestinian authority should be working as hard as possible to ease them? Couldn't he have said he needed an active engagement, like Clinton had, instead of dealing from afar and picking which Palestinian leaders he would talk to and which he wouldn't? Anything, really, except what he did.