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Within days of declaring himself the presumptive Democratic Party nominee, Senator Barack Obama addressed the influential American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), promising the state of Israel 30 billion additional dollars in U.S. aid over the next decade on top of the 140 billion dollars it has received so far. Obama dashed the hopes of many across the Arab world who hope that his Presidency could signal an end to 8 devastating years of Bush’s policies. Obama received 13 standing ovations during his 37 minute speech to the lobby group, vowing to protect an “undivided” Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. US policy has long been intentionally vague on the status of Jerusalem and even President Bush recently announced he was suspending a proposed move to shift the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. As such, Obama’s pledges of support were seen as extreme even by the standards of contemporary mainstream Israeli political discourse. Obama also spent the majority of his speech fanning the flames of Israeli assertions that Iran is a major threat in the region to both Israeli and US interests. John McCain’s speech to AIPAC was very similar – he promised to approve US military aid and to target Iran.

Today we spend the hour discussing an issue that is central to so many millions of people all over the world and here in the US, but that neither the Democratic nor the Republican candidate plans to discuss during this year’s presidential election. It’s the issue they’ve implicitly agreed to agree on.