Grossman dismisses Kerry's comments as political opportunism. "Howard basically said these are combatants, they are fighting a war of terrorism, and they should be hunted down and given no quarter," he said. Hardly the position of a stooge for the PLO.

Whatever Dean meant, though, some observers say he hurt himself. Hank Sheinkopf, a longtime Democratic political consultant who worked on the 1996 Clinton-Gore campaign, says Kerry's attack was justified and that Dean's comments created an "an extraordinary imbroglio."

Last November, Sheinkopf was quoted in an article in the Forward applauding Dean for naming Grossman to run his campaign. In that article, Dean disavowed Americans for Peace Now, saying, "At one time the Peace Now view was important but now Israel is under enormous pressure. We have to stop terrorism before peace negotiations."

According to Sheinkopf, Dean's recent comments represent an abandonment of that line. "He keeps changing his position," Sheinkopf says. "Now he's calling Hamas soldiers. Either they're terrorists or soldiers. The nomenclature is clear. His language legitimizes terrorists and puts him far out on the left."

If Dean's Israel position really puts him far out on the left, it proves that not showing unequivocal support for the Jewish state remains a political poison pill -- for members of either political party.

Last year, former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney, D-Ga., learned that supporting the Palestinians can be a career-killer when pro-Israel donors poured more than $1 million into the coffers of Denise Majette, who successfully challenged the five-term incumbent in the Democratic primary.

Dean, though, is no McKinney. After all, according to Grossman, the candidate remains in sync with the goals of Bush's Israel policy. Dean's only real criticism of the president is that he hasn't given the region enough sustained attention. "Bush made a huge mistake early on by absenting himself from [the region] for 18 months," Grossman says. "He walked away from the Middle East and acted like the Middle East didn't exist, while the Middle East was exploding in a cauldron of violence. Why? Because Bill Clinton had spent so much time there, and Bush was going to avoid doing anything Bill Clinton had done. Frankly, it was an immature decision. Howard, in contrast, has said, 'I will be involved in this issue from day one because it is critical to the American national interest.'"

In fact, Dean is selling his Israel policy as a continuation of Clinton's, and has called on Bush to send Clinton as an envoy to Israel. In a Sept. 12 letter to the Anti-Defamation League's Foxman, he wrote: "I will follow in the footsteps of Bill Clinton from day one of a Dean Administration and make every effort to bring peace to this troubled region."

That letter, written in response to Foxman's earlier message of concern about Dean's Zionist bona fides, said that, while the United States should play the "honest broker" in Israel's dispute with the Palestinians, it wouldn't try to extract concessions from Israel.

"There is no difference between our positions when it comes to my unequivocal support for Israel's right to exist and to be free from terror," he assured Foxman. "As I have said before, the United States must remain committed to the special, long-standing relationship we have with Israel, including providing the resources necessary to guarantee Israel's long-term defense and security ... I believe, however, that the United States has another important role to play in the region -- that of an honest broker at the negotiating table -- with the trust of both sides and able to facilitate direct talks between the parties ... We are also in agreement that only the Palestinians and the Israelis themselves can make and keep the peace and work out the specifics of a lasting agreement. Peace cannot be imposed by outside parties. On the issue of settlements, both parties have acknowledged that Israel will have to remove a number of settlements. How many and which those are will have to be determined as part of a final agreement negotiated by the parties."

One of Dean's only statements in favor of putting pressure on Israel was issued in support of a Bush administration policy. Last week, the White House announced it was deducting money that Israel spends building West Bank settlements from American loan guarantees -- essentially saying that America won't fund illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. Lieberman and Rep. Dick Gephardt opposed the move, placing themselves to Bush's right, while Kerry and Dean supported it. "Without having read the specific language of the Bush administration's decision, it seems in keeping with my view on conditioning the amount of our loan guarantees," Dean e-mailed the Forward.

No serious candidate took a position to the left of Bush. Indeed, it's precisely because there's no real leftist alternative that Dean's been cast in that role. After all, it's unlikely that Dean's critics ever really thought that he meant to honor members of Hamas when he called them "soldiers," or that, if elected, he'd jettison America's alliance with Israel. But a campaign is always more about images and impressions than carefully formulated positions, and that's where Dean has blundered.

As Sheinkopf says, most voters don't know or care who former AIPAC president Grossman is, or, for that matter, that Dean's wife, Dr. Judy Steinberg Dean, and children are Jewish. "They do know that there are troops in Iraq," he says. "They know Americans have been attacked by terrorists on their own soil and they know that Howard Dean calls terrorists 'soldiers.' It's arrogant to believe people are following every word. What they're following is the nightly news cycle saying Howard Dean is soft on terror."

Yet that nightly news cycle, and the way real issues evanesce in it, might also work in Dean's favor, making potential backers forget all about this interlude. Sheinkopf, for all his criticism of Dean, doesn't think his comments on Israel will affect his fundraising among Jews. "If he appears to be ahead, the money's going to keep coming in from Jews and others. Funders tend to fund winners, not losers." No matter how many gaffes he makes, then, no one can say Dean's imploding till the money dries up.

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