The photograph of Mayor Bloomberg on page 1 of The New York Sun today is worth a thousand words with respect to the question of where Hizzoner’s heart is in the Middle East. By travelling to Jerusalem in the wake of the latest terrorist bombing in the Israeli capital, Mr. Bloomberg didn’t just do the right thing, he said the right thing. “You don’t negotiate when there’s a gun to your head. You have to stand up and fight back,” we watched him say in televised remarks. It’s exactly the message the world needs to hear in support of Israel’s right to defend its citizens in the face of a terrorist onslaught. There will no doubt be those who carp that Mr. Bloomberg should be home doing his job, which doesn’t involve foreign policy. But symbolism is important. And New Yorkers, who have had our own encounters with terrorism in recent years, can be proud of the way Mr. Bloomberg represented us yesterday in Jerusalem.

We’d don’t mind saying that we nurse a hope that enroute back to New York, Mr. Bloomberg will find time to wonder why in the world he hasn’t rectified his mistake of naming to the city’s Human Rights Commission Omar Mohammedi, who has served as general counsel to the local chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations and who has aligned himself with the enemies of the Jews at home and abroad. Or to put it another way, we’d like to think that Mr. Bloomberg’s visit to the Jewish capital is a first step in his accession on the whole question of the war against the Jews that is under-way in the world today. He could play a useful role not only in the city but on the national stage if he followed through on what he said in Israel — on his opposition to negotiations with the Palestinian Arabs for the duration of this war and for the use of military force as the more appropriate response to terror.