Drawing a contentious comparison, The Wall Street Journal's James Taranto finds a pair of strange bedfellows in Helen Thomas and Peter Beinart. Thomas, of course, retired on Monday after a video of her saying Jews in Israel should "go home" caused a political firestorm. She's 89 years old, liberal and a longtime critic of Israel. Beinart, on the other hand, considers himself a Zionist but will nevertheless criticize Israeli leadership when he sees fit. What's the bigger connection between these two? They both underestimate the threat Israel faces from its enemies, argues Taranto:

Helen Thomas is American journalism's crazy old aunt in the attic. Peter Beinart is a starry-eyed nephew. She loathes the state of Israel; he claims to love it--though both sided with the so-called Free Gaza flotilla that tried to break Jerusalem's naval blockade and allow the arming of the terror group Hamas, which has been firing rockets at Israeli civilians... Beinart claims to be pro-Israel, and we don't doubt his sincerity. But his determined denial of the nature of Israel's enemies leads us to doubt his grip on reality.

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John Hudson