After the Daily Beast Israel-could-become-an-apartheid-state.html”>released excerpts of his warning world leaders that Israel would devolve into an “apartheid” state if it failed to agree to a peace deal, Secretary of State John Kerry walked back his comments. “If I could rewind the tape,” he explained, “I would have chosen a different word to describe my firm belief that the only way in the long term to have a Jewish state and two nations and two peoples living side by side in peace and security is through a two-state solution.”

This shouldn’t make anyone feel better. It’s not just the incendiary use of “apartheid” that’s the problem but the well-worn canard about Israel that Kerry rests his position on. And his position shouldn’t really surprise anyone who’s been paying attention. President Obama offered basically the same argument only a couple of months ago when he warned that time was running out for “Israel as a Jewish-majority democracy.”