Justin Elliott of Mother Jones went over the 11 Democratic debates to see how often Israel came up. His report:
In nine of the 11 debates, the terms Israel, Palestinians, and Gaza
were either never uttered or were mentioned once or twice peripherally.
For instance, Joe Biden said
at the October 30 NBC debate that Pakistan has missiles that can reach
Israel. The two exceptions were the November 15 Democratic debate
in Las Vegas, where Bill Richardson, unprompted, briefly outlined his
ideas for a two-state solution, and the December 4 Democratic radio debate
on NPR, in which moderator Robert Siegel posed the single question
about Israel of the past 11 debates. Unfortunately, the query was
effectively avoided."When we do things that policymakers in Washington
may think are rational, like very strong support of Israel, that also
upsets a lot of those 1 billion Muslims you’ve described. How would
you, Senator Edwards … answer the complaint that the U.S., in its
support of Israel, is so pro-Israeli, it can’t be an evenhanded, honest
broker of matters and is anti-Muslim?"Edwards proceeds
to ignore the question, makes a point about Ahmadinejad and says to
improve relations with Muslims we must "help make education available
to fight global poverty." He makes no mention of Israel/Palestine.
Siegel then turns to Obama. The senator says we need to close
Guantanamo and talk not just to our friends but to our enemies. He,
like Edwards, doesn’t touch the Israel issue. To their credit, Dodd and
Kucinich do a much better job at engaging.So in the past 11 debates the grand total of references to the Gaza
Strip is zero. Considering that Israel is our biggest ally in the
Middle East and the biggest recipient
of U.S. aid in the world, isn’t it about time the candidates were asked
what they think of our ally’s destructive policies in Gaza? Will any
moderator have the courage to pose the question?
