KERRY TO JEWS: ISRAEL SHOULD SURVIVE; VOTE FOR ME

Kerry: 'Security of Israel non-negotiable'
Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry on Friday said the US needed to train police officers, as Israel does, to "think differently about terror," and said the US-Israel alliance and the "survival and security of Israel are non-negotiable."

Kerry's comments about Israel, which delighted some Democratic activists who feared he was not speaking frequently enough about the US-Israel relationship to please Jewish voters, came during one of his most forceful foreign policy addresses to date, in which he attacked President George W. Bush for shifting the focus away from al Qaeda to Iraq, and pledged to fight a "tougher, smarter, more effective war on terror." The speech in Philadelphia was a follow-up to another foreign policy speech in New York four days earlier...

Turning to the need for democracy in the Middle East, Kerry said, "Let it be clear that the issue here is advancing democracy in Arab nations, not yielding to pressure to undermine Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East. Our alliance with Israel, the survival and security of Israel, are non-negotiable. The only solution is a Jewish state of Israel living side by side in security and peace with a democratic Palestinian state."