We’re not happy that his views did not coincide with the Israeli government’s in those important instances, but we realize he must make a judgment based on his perception of U.S. interests (although we suspect his positions on those and similar issues were sops to President Obama).
And in all fairness, we note that he has typically aligned with Israel on any number of issues.
But our bottom-line concern is with Sen. Kaine’s seeming embrace of the J Street line – indeed, he has been praised, endorsed, and funded by J Street – which has played out these past few years in unfortunate rancor between the president of the United States and the prime minister of Israel.
We fear that by her choice of Sen. Kaine, Mrs. Clinton has signaled that there will be no change in that regard. Perhaps some reassurance is in order from Mr. Obama’s onetime secretary of state.