Does your friend have a name...or is he a "special" friend?

I think this is pretty interesting. I don't think that Obama's race makes him a more credible messenger for Israel but his popularity sure does. He'll likely have a better working relationship with other foreign leaders and that's where Israel would really benefit.

Even if Obama and McCain have the same policies (and they do likely share a lot in common) they'll be easier for Obama to sell. McCain has to walk into the room as an extension of George Bush -- as the third term of a presidency that has repeatedly thumbed its nose at other world leaders. Obama starts fresh.

I don't see how anyone could argue that the last 8 years have been good for Israel's security. I'd expect Israelis to want a new face in American politics just like many Americans do.

But really, this isn't much about policy, is it? It's about who can communicate what.

Right, Destor. But it sure doesn't hurt to have this guy, with his background, defending Israel (only when it's right, of course).
Right now, Israel is a pariah. He can change that -- with Israel's help, of course.

Here's a look at Mccain's foreign policy advisors;

Randy Scheunemann, Max Boot, James Woolsey, William Kristol, Robert Kagan, Mark Salter, John Bolton, Gary Schmitt, Ralph Peters, Joe Lieberman, Daniel Mckivergan.

Most on that list are neo-cons, and some are signatories to the goals of The Project for a New American Century which is funded in part by such organizations as the Sarah Scaife Foundation, the John M. Olin Foundation and the Bradley Foundation.

Maybe they will be able to get a President McCain to invade Iran.

@all

FDR, the Holocaust, and the Promised Land

I urge everyone interested in this thread and this subject to read the first 7 pages of this book (all that is available through this source).

You'll find that none of the current arguments and positions is new, but that, in historical context, motivations are arguments are of much greater clarity, as are consequences.

Obama and Tzipi could have the best chance of getting stuff done as long as the old advisors and liasons are shuffled off to the side.

New blood is required to deal with the new facts on the ground in the ME.

@ destor23

every compelling demographic argument I've ever seen, especially when they're based on birth rates, turns out to be wrong.

This is the most interesting of claims. How in the world did you arrive at it, given the undoubted huge rise in population over the last 200 to 500 years, and the undoubted finite size of the earth and its resources?

Sure, Malthus and Ehrlich were wrong in both their timing and reasoning, Germany didn't die despite its failure to gain lebensraum, and European populations - excluding third-world immigration - have stabilized.

But so much in human affairs has been driven by the need/desire to acquire new resources, especially land. It has been possible to attribute shortages to mal-distribution, organizational failure, inadequate science and engineering, rather than absolute physical limits. But, quite frankly, I view much of that attribution as rationalization.

In the case at hand it's theoretically possible that both Arabs and Jews will find a way to put their cultural and religious differences aside and form a united government. History does not look kindly at that possibility. It's also possible that both will decide that stabilizing population is their highest priority. There's absolutely no evidence for that. How about technological fixes...new water sources, substitutes for petrol, better crops? Those are world-wide problems, with Israel at the forefront in finding solutions and Arabs at the back of the pack, and it's far from certain that they can stave off devastating climate change, energy deprivation, starvation, disease, drought, multiple extinctions.

MJ.

While I completely agree with your friends assessment of an Obama presidency, it seems disingenuous to call him a hard-liner if he is support a centrist candidate. Thoughts?