We don’t want to be too hard on Senator Kerry in respect of Israel, as he has taken some admirable positions lately, including supporting Prime Minister Sharon on the attacks on the leaders of Hamas. He has also withdrawn his criticism of the fence. That said, the word that we heard used last night to describe the senator’s remarks to the Anti Defamation League was “flaccid.” It does not reflect deep thought for Mr. Kerry to chastise the Bush administration for disengaging from the Middle East peace process. What Middle East peace process is he talking about? It was the Middle East “peace Process” that precipitated the wave of terrorism that Is rael is now fighting. We

like the way Eric Cantor, the Republican congressman of Virginia, put it, reacting to Mr. Kerry’s remarks. “He says we will never disengage, what does that mean?” our Luiza Savage quotes him as saying in her page six story today. “If you’re going to engage, [it’s] obvious that means he wants to pressure Israel to negotiate.”

What President Bush has done – much to the satisfaction many of us who are invested in idea that this is not a war in which America can benefit by being neutral – is swing behind the Jewish state and back its government as it maneuvers in this war. This was evident yet again last night, as the administration stood fast with Prime Minister Sharon in the wake of the defeat by Likud rank and file Sunday of the premier’s disengagement plan. The Guardian newspaper in London was reporting last night that 53 former American diplomats are accusing the White House of sacrificing America’s credibility in the Arab world — and the safety of its diplomats and soldiers — because of the administration’s support for Mr. Sharon. But the State Department spokesman is being quoted by the Associated Press as saying that the disengagement plan could still be a way to move peace talks forward, adding, “I don’t think we’ve hitched our wagon to any single effort.”

Mr. Sharon, meanwhile, is demonstrating that they don’t call him the “bulldozer” for nothing. He reacted to the defeat of his disengagement plan by saying that he would come up with an alternative plan for withdrawal, and the AP quoted officials in Israel as suggesting that the plan, which had won U.S. backing and is popular with a broader segment of the Israeli population than the Likud party membership, would be slightly scaled down and the new version would not be put to a Likud vote. “The question is should Israel lead or be led, does time work

in our favor or against us, and is what we are proposing accepted by the world?” Mr. Sharon told the Likud meeting, according to an official who was present and quoted by the AP. Also yesterday, the wires were reporting that Israel’s army had cut off access to the compound of the terrorist leader, Yasser Arafat.

Although we have abiding respect for Mr. Sharon, we have a sense that the opponents of Mr. Sharon’s plan within Likud are making a contribution to all this. This was evident in a conference call yesterday between American Jewish leaders and Israel’s envoy in Washington, Ambassador Ayalon, and Natan Sharansky, who, although he is a minister in the government, has been opposing the withdrawal plan. Mr. Sharansky argued that one doesn’t withdraw from territory without getting tangible concessions from a negotiating partner. Mr. Ayalon responded that these are not concessions but unilateral steps to force activity in the face of an enemy’s refusal to act. Their differences seemed to be over modality. There is a faction that sees the principal advantage to the disengagement plan as being that if, in its wake, violence against Israel continues, the way will be open for a far more aggressive military action by Israel. The big concern in respect of Mr. Kerry is that when the going gets rougher, he’ll start backpedaling the way he did after he got out of Vietnam and the way he did when the going got rough in the Battle of Iraq.