The Political Interest: Bush's Reward For Courage

Israel is to foreign policy as entitlement programs are to domestic affairs. Getting tough on either is considered politically suicidal, especially in a presidential-election year. Cowardice continues to dominate discussions about cutting Social Security and Medicare. Everyone knows the deficit will remain unmanageable until those programs are trimmed, but only Ross Perot has seriously proposed whacking them -- and Perot, on the sidelines, is the ultimate coward.

Israel is another matter. When the Bush Administration took office, it faced two choices. It could have made the usual noises with predictable results: no real progress toward peace in the Middle East but...