After confused signals last night from the Clinton campaign, Hillary Clinton began her speech to AIPAC today with a magnanimous and clear message--that she will support a President Obama and that he will support Israel. AIPAC sure has lucky timing to hold its convention on the day after the Dem primary winds down. It puts the organization front and center and doubtless will start the blogs and pundits wagging (as I am here...) about the central role of the organization in American politics.

But, that's not the issue. The issue is what about American foreign policy, not what about one organization. And on that score, Senator Obama laid out a vision that will be key to America's revived role in the Mideast region. Both he (and Senator Clinton) made clear that only sustained involvement by the U.S. will create peace in the region. Here's the thing:

The clock is fiercely running down. The lack of involvement and botched involvement by the current U.S. administration has been harmful to U.S. interests and to all in the region. This is old news by now. But here's something new to consider. The same hope that American voters have expressed in their overwhelming turnout--and younger voter engagement--for Barack Obama is the sentiment that people in Israel and Palestine, Syria, Iran and elsewhere deserve. There needs to be a creative, sustained political approach to finally creating two states between Israel and Palestine and sooner in a new administration rather than later, but there also needs to be a renewed sense of hope for the populations that have become so dismayed by the lack of political success.

Listening to Israeli radio on broadband a short while ago, as the newscasters talked about the U.S. election in their weekly round up, I heard them too use words like 'hope' when talking about the Obama phenomenon, just like the American news media. The songs that were interlaced with the news reports were the same songs that get played on Israeli radio when there are glimmers of progress toward peace, or when the dream of peace is shattered, as it was following the murder by a Jewish extremist of former Israeli PM Yitzhak Rabin.

Don't underestimate the hope that an Obama candidacy and presidency can bring to the Israeli public especially as Israel's own political leadership is crumbling in scandal investigations. There will, pretty much without doubt, be a new Israeli Prime Minister and coalition government this November just in time for our new American president. It's urgent that there be politicians in both capitols (and in Ramallah) who are able to come together finally to move to two states. That's what that this campaign is about. It's good American policy. Saber rattling and empty rhetoric about patriotism or being soft on terror is not.