Democrats shouldn’t hide behind Israel when they are really targeting President Bush’s Iraq policy.

And neither should Republicans, who use the defense of Israel to rally support for the increasingly unpopular Iraq war.

Congressional Democrats are demanding an apology from Prime Minister al-Maliki of Iraq for his criticism of Israel’s military operations in Gaza and Lebanon. Moreover, they linked the apology to Mr. Maliki’s address to Congress, demanding that his invitation be rescinded unless and until his apology was forthcoming.

Rep. Nita Lowey, a Democrat of New York, went so far as to argue that Congress “should not supply a platform for supporters of Hezbollah.”

Mr. Maliki, like Hezbollah a Shiite Muslim, condemned “the criminal acts in Lebanon and Gaza.”

(In addition to being a Shiite, Mr. Maliki is a politician. Israel is not well-appreciated in Iraq; even Iraq’s pro-American and pro-Israel President Talabani, called Israel’s actions “a filthy war.”)

The Democratic move should be understood against the following backdrop. Israel is at war, and American Jewish opinion has rallied to its defense. So has the Bush administration, which continues to hold out for a “sustainable” cease-fire, meaning a cessation of hostilities that includes the disarming of Hezbollah.

On the other hand, American Jewish opinion is, in the main, in the camp of those who oppose the president’s Iraq policy.

Now comes the complication: Democrats are split over Israel, and certainly over terms for ending the conflict.

A July 19 CNN poll conducted by Opinion Research Corporation, based on interviews with 633 adult Americans, asked respondents to choose between two options. Thirty-nine percent said “Israel should continue taking military action until Hezbollah can no longer launch attacks against Israel,” while 43% said “Israel should agree to a cease-fire as soon as possible.” (Seventeen percent had no opinion.)

Analyzing the results for CNN, William Schneider said, “The split has a lot to do with party. Most Republicans say Israel should continue to attack until the threat is eliminated; most Democrats prefer a cease-fire.”

So the real way to read the poll is Republicans overwhelmingly believe that a cease-fire should follow the disarming of Hezbollah, while Democrats overwhelmingly think there should be an immediate cease-fire to spare any further suffering of Lebanese civilians — and damn the consequences down the road.

Now add a July 21 article from the Forward. “As the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah raged on … major players in the liberal blogosphere were keeping, by their own admission, decidedly quiet,” Jennifer Siegel writes.

In a rare moment of reticence, the man who launched a thousand blogs, Markos Moulitsas Zúniga of DailyKos.com, explained “why I won’t write about the Israel/Lebanon/Palestine fighting.”

On the left, a July 20 editorial in the Nation protested that most Democrats are “in denial” on Lebanon. In the House, a small faction has gathered around Rep. Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat of Ohio, supporting a resolution calling for “an immediate cessation of violence and to commit the United States diplomats to multi-party negotiations with no preconditions.”

This is further evidence that large parts of the Democratic base are well to the left of the party leadership.The liberal blogosphere took a pass because taking on the issue would have led to a split between pro-Israel liberals and those who automatically adopt a view in opposition to the one in the White House.

Senate Democratic leaders called on Mr. Bush “to send a high-level special envoy to the Middle East to work with allies and negotiate an end to the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah.”

Given the lay of the land, what would such an envoy do? In Rome, Secretary Rice could not persuade other Western powers and the Arab Sunni states to support the American view that Hezbollah must be disarmed before any cease-fire, and not kicked down the road as an issue to be resolved later. Without a dramatic reversal of American policy, such an envoy would not be permitted to enter into direct negotiations with Hezbollah, Syria, or Iran. Other than to apply pressure on Israel, how would this help?

Republicans are also guilty of using Iraq to enlarge their base of support among American Jews. But whether Israel is more or less secure because of the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime remains an open question. If Iraq stabilizes in the way the Bush administration hopes, then the answer will be yes. But that’s a big if. And even so, the collapse of Iraq as an Arab stopgap against Iran has meant the eruption of Iranian and Shiite power that, through its Lebanese formation, Hezbollah, directly threatens Israel.

Might Israel and Hezbollah be fighting anyway, that is even if Saddam were still in power? Probably, but not necessarily at this point. Iraq’s weakness and the rise to power within Iraq of the majority Shiites has opened the door to Iran’s penetration into the Arab states.