"In his first trip to the Middle East as chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean will be traveling to Israel this fall with a Jewish organization. Dean, who became the DNC chairman in February, will take the six-day trip in September with the National Jewish Democratic Council. Democrats are noting that the September trip is coming at a critical time in the Middle East, just after Israel is scheduled to have completed its disengagement from Gaza.
"Governor Dean will build on the tradition of Democratic party chairs visiting Israel, where he'll experience firsthand the important changes in the region since he last visited three years ago," said Matt Dorf, the consultant who is organizing the trip from the DNC's end. Then-DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe visited Israel in 2002 as the guest of the Jewish Democratic council. The upcoming trip will be the second such visit for Dean, who in 2002, at the outset of his presidential run, toured Israel with an arm of lobbying powerhouse the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Dean "feels a strong desire to bring his knowledge and understanding of the Middle East up to date and further strengthen his relations with the Jewish community," said Aipac President Steve Grossman, who will lead the delegation going to Israel with Dean. Grossman, a former DNC chairman, was chairman of Dean's presidential campaign.
Dean, who has opposed the Iraq War since its inception, comes to the trip with a certain amount of baggage regarding Israel questions. He told the Forward before his 2002 Israel trip that his view of the Middle East conflict was "closer to Aipac's view" than to that of dovish groups such as Peace Now. But some of his statements during the campaign — when he rode a wave of anti-war sentiment to become the Democratic frontrunner for a time — seemed to indicate that he was taking a more neutralist view of the conflict."-from the story today in The Forward, a New York weekly.
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