How are the parties different in their approach to Israel?
The Republican Party is much more willing to support Israel, which is a huge flashpoint in the Middle East, much more willing to support Israel in terms of its conflicts with the Palestinians, its conflicts with Syria, and is much more willing to look at its foreign policy in the Middle East with an eye towards protecting Israel. So when it talks about Iran, it talks about nuclear weapons in Iran, part of what it's saying is that Iran already has the capability of delivering ballistics into Israel, and so if they get nuclear weapons, and you've got Ahmadinejad saying the holocaust didn't happen and Israel should be pushed into the sea, that they're much more willing to act upon that. And the United States is much more willing to try and take, the Republican Party is, obviously, in terms of Iraq, more willing to take an active role in trying to create stability with boots on the ground and in the Middle East whereas the Democratic Party is less willing to be forthrightly or just blatantly supportive of Israel. Now, to be honest, the Democratic Party tends to support Israel also, but they are more willing to see Israel as one interest of the Middle East and not as the primary US ally in the Middle East. And so they are more willing to negotiate with the Palestinians or to treat Israel as an interest instead of a key ally, but then again there's factions within the Democratic Party on that, along those lines, and even within the Republican Party, there's factions that are more supportive of Israel and there's factions that tend to be more like "let Israel deal with itself and let the United States keep to its United States" but that tends to be the way it works around, that mostly the Parties kind of divide mostly on Israel.
