It was probably inevitable that a major Presidential candidate with an Arabic name would, sooner or later, be confronted with questions about the relationship between the United States and its closest Middle Eastern ally. Equally inevitably, after five years of war in an Arab country and seven after a terrorist attack carried out on this country by an Islamist terror network, that discussion will touch on America's fractured relationship with the Islamic world in general and our posture towards the Jewish state in particular.

A look back is in order. In 1820, New York State's Grand Island was proposed as the location of a new Jewish homeland, understood as a gathering place for Jews before aliyah to Zion became possible. Emma Lazarus, author of The New Colossus, was an agitator for proto-Zionist and proto-feminist ideas in New York's 19th Century Gilded Age. The connection between New York and the idea of Zionism is long and deep.

The United States was one of the first countries to recognize Israel itself, somewhat to the chagrin of the British Empire; and before Washington endorsed the fact of Israel's independence, there had been a bipartisan consensus of sympathy to the Zionist experiment.

President Wilson expressed his support for the Balfour Declaration when he stated on March 3, 1919:

The allied nations with the fullest concurrence of our government and people are agreed that in Palestine shall be laid the foundations of a Jewish Commonwealth.

After Wilson left office, his successors expressed similar support for the Zionist enterprise. "It is impossible for one who has studied at all the services of the Hebrew people to avoid the faith that they will one day be restored to their historic national home and there enter on a new and yet greater phase of their contribution to the advance of humanity," said President Warren Harding.

Calvin Coolidge expressed his "sympathy with the deep and intense longing which finds such fine expression in the Jewish National Homeland in Palestine."

"Palestine which, desolate for centuries, is now renewing its youth and vitality through enthusiasm, hard work, and self-sacrifice of the Jewish pioneers who toil there in a spirit of peace and social justice," observed Herbert Hoover.

Of course, Hoover's observation rested on one glaring error: that the Cis-Jordanian Imperial mandate of Palestine was terra nullius, an empty land awaiting settlement. The land was not empty, and the question of how to reconcile the legitimate claims of competing (and, one could argue, complementary) nationalisms has been contentious and unresolved ever since.

Following independence, the relationship between the United States and the new nation of Israel quickly cooled, responding to the patterns of alignment set in the developing Cold War. A major portion of the weaponry that secured the new state's independence came from Czechoslovakia prior to that country's complete absorption into the Soviet orbit. In 1956, President Eisenhower forced an Anglo-French-Israeli expedition force to retreat from the Suez Canal, recently seized by Egypt's Arab nationalist President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Further frost was added to the bilateral relationship by the conservative Eisenhower administration's distrust of Israel's nascent structure as a socialist economy characterized by strong labor unions, led by the labor coalition Histadrut, and a parallel internal economy of collectivist enterprises in the Kibbutzim. A rapprochement of sorts between the Labour government of Levi Eshkol and the Kennedy/Johnson administration was capped in the 1967 Six Day War, another Cold War proxy battle, when American arms shipments to Israel obviated comparable shipments to Arab combatant states by the Soviet Union and resulted in a stunning Israeli victory.

As a result of that victory, Israel became an occupying power over territories previously belonging, de facto or de iure, to Egypt, Syria and Jordan. It is the fate of these territories that ultimately will decide a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

In 2004, the Democratic Party platform embraced the concept of a two-state solution for the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians, following in the footsteps of the Clinton administration's developing Middle Eastern policy. The current republican administration embraced the idea of two states for two peoples some time into its first term as well. Despite the overall fraying of the post-war foreign policy consensus along partisan lines, therefore, it can be considered settled American policy that the legitimate national aspirations of both Israelis and Palestinians, to live in peace, security, within recognized borders as fully sovereign members of the international community, are an objective of the American national interest. Firmly embedded within that consensus is the assumption that America, due to the kinship between our domestic institutions and Weltanschauung with those of Israel as a Western democracy, will continue to support Israel's security and aid that country's defense.

Barack Obama stands equally firmly within this consensus. So why the controversy?

Ami Iseroff writes as follows:

It may really be, as Akiva Eldar claims, that all those "Zionists" who are opposed to Barack Obama are really against him because they oppose the peace process. Barack Obama is certainly not the ideal "Israel Supporter" of the [Zionist Organization of America], but then again, the ZOA would not consider David Ben Gurion a good Zionist either, and places Ehud Olmert in a category close to Yasser Arafat. Fair enough. Those opposing Obama the loudest may be reactionaries, but that doesn't mean Barack Obama is a friend of Israel.

And this, by the same author:

To deny the wonders of Obama is to risk hellfire and damnation on earth. Among Jews, this has been reinforced by the spate of attacks on Barack Obama by the wrong sort of Jews. A man is known by his enemies. People who are pure of heart do not doubt Obama. Barack Obama's enemies, some of whom I described previously, include a flock of neoconservative and paleoconservative bloggers who put up a picture of Obama with his hand on the shoulder of demagogue Al Sharpton, and implied falsely that Obama was involved in the Tawana Brawley riots.

But when I last wrote about Obama, there were serious charges to be considered, and they had not been answered. Ed Lasky and others had charged that Obama has two advisers: Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Malley, both of whom are inimical to Israel. Their records are fairly clear. Malley may not be everything that Lasky charges, but he is certainly not a friend of Israel, and he and his father have been consistent friends of the PLO. The first answer to these charges was given by Martin Peretz in the New Republic:

There are all kinds of spooky rumors that a man named Robert Malley is one of Obama's advisers, specifically his Middle East adviser. His name comes up mysteriously and intrusively on the web, like the ads for Viagra. Malley, who has written several deceitful articles in The New York Review of Books, is a rabid hater of Israel. No question about it. But Malley is not and has never been a Middle East adviser to Barack Obama.

Zbigniew Brzezinski endorsed Mearsheimer and Walt's Israel Lobby book and is featured favorably on anti-"Zionist" Web sites of the same level as Stormfront. Brzezinski, we are told, like Obama, is not an adviser on Middle East policy.

There's a lot here, but some strands of argument can be coherently identified. First, obviously, that there is some congruence between authors of claims that Barack Obama is "anti-Israel" - a notoriously ill-defined term, but more on that later - and the reactionary segments of opinion that probably won't be supporting Democrats anyway. Second, that advisors, actual or claimed, and supporters of Obama have taken positions seen as unfriendly to Israel or, in the case of Louis Farrakhan, as openly anti-Semitic.

There's no question that Farrakhan is an anti-Semite, as are at least some of Israel's most outspoken critics. Equally, there's little doubt that Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, starting with an article, The Israel Lobby, published in the London Review of Books and further amplified with a book of the same title, have drawn very hostile attention to themselves from Jews and non-Jews alike, for example, in Leslie Gelb's review in the New York Times or in that by Leonard Fein of Americans For Peace Now.

What is noticeable, however, is that the foundations of the charge against Barack Obama are all at a remove; it's not that he himself has said or done things construable as anti-Israel, but that those in his orbit, selected by him or otherwise, have supposedly done so. That is rather weak tea that wouldn't suffice as the basis for logical deductions outside of primary campaign season.

Shmuel Rosner, chief U.S. correspondent for Haaretz, addressed the subject of Obama and Israel on his blog in a widely-quoted piece.

Barack Obama's big speech on Israel is now over, and as expected, the candidate made no secret of his support and dedication to the special relationship between the U.S. and Israel. "My view is that the United States' special relationship with Israel obligates us to be helpful to them in the search for credible partners with whom they can make peace, while also supporting Israel in defending itself against enemies sworn to its destruction," were Obama's words to Haaretz last week. Today, he sounded as strong as Clinton, as supportive as Bush, as friendly as Giuliani. At least rhetorically, Obama passed any test anyone might have wanted him to pass. So, he is pro-Israel. Period.

In today's Jerusalem Post, an author very open about his support for McCain, Larry Derfner, writes:

AS I'VE written, I support John McCain for president, and I think Obama is too inexperienced in military and foreign affairs to be president now. But as far as anyone has been able to find out, he has never made anything even close to an anti-Semitic or anti-Israeli remark in his life - unless you think that expressing sympathy for Palestinians, and preferring Middle East diplomacy to Middle East war, is inherently anti-Israeli and anti-Semitic.

Diversity, Inc.'s Jennifer Millman adds some coverage from last week's Democratic debate.

Later, under a semantic attack from Clinton, who argued he wasn't being strong enough on Farrakhan, Obama qualified his earlier statement, saying, "I have to say I don't see a difference between denouncing and rejecting. There's no formal offer of help from Minister Farrakhan that would involve me rejecting it. But if the word 'reject' Sen. Clinton feels is stronger than the word 'denounce,' then I'm happy to concede the point, and I would reject and denounce."

"I have been a stalwart friend of Israel's," Obama later assured Jewish Americans and others watching the debate. "They are one of our most important allies in the region, and I think that their security is sacrosanct, and that the United States is in a special relationship with them, as is true with my relationship with the Jewish community."

Also in today's Jerusalem Post is an analysis of Obama's actual record on Israel by Congressman Robert Wexler of Florida.

Barack Obama's record speaks for itself. He has longstanding support among the Jewish community in Illinois, who know first hand his unshakable commitment to Israel's security. In the US Senate, he has established himself as a strong friend of Israel. As a candidate, he has made clear his commitment to deepen the US-Israel relationship and to defend Israel's security as a Jewish state.

What is notable is that pro-Palestinian advocates - which expression is ultimately as unsatisfying as pro- or anti-Israel - are none too pleased with Barack Obama's political trajectory. In a piece about Obama's 2007 speech to AIPAC - the American Israel Public Affairs Committee - Ali Abunimah, publisher of The Electronic Intifada, a pro-Palestinian news portal, wrote:

Israel is "our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy," Obama said, assuring his audience that "we must preserve our total commitment to our unique defense relationship with Israel by fully funding military assistance and continuing work on the Arrow and related missile defense programs." Such advanced multi-billion dollar systems he asserted, would help Israel "deter missile attacks from as far as Tehran and as close as Gaza." As if the starved, besieged and traumatized population of Gaza are about to develop intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Obama offered not a single word of criticism of Israel, of its relentless settlement and wall construction, of the closures that make life unlivable for millions of Palestinians.

Abunimah's piece allows two observations: one, that within the dichotomy of pro- and anti-Israel, those who can fairly or otherwise be described as anti regard Barack Obama with limited enthusiasm, and two, that our national debate, as we're having it now, misses one critical aspect of the conflict: that Israel does thing which we as Americans might very well take issue with.

That last observation is key to understanding the unsatisfactory concepts of pro-Israel and anti-Israel. The terms themselves imply a zero-sum dichotomy, where a gain for one is a loss for the other. There is no serious debate in this country as to whether or not we should support Israel's security, and we will continue to do so under an Obama administration. In short, as the term is presently understood, we will continue to be pro-Israel. However, this country would be well served by realizing that Israel's occupation of the West Bank creates and sustains significant human suffering, which in the last resort is not in their interest, or ours, let alone in that of the affected Palestinian population.

The opportunity of the discussion about Barack Obama's views on Israel is simple, and we should grasp it: to refine our understanding of what it means to be supportive of our ally, while at the same time giving due and tangible regard - which U.S. policy has not always done - to the aspirations of Israel's Palestinian neighbors. The two are not mutually exclusive; rather, they depend on one another to an increasing degree. If Barack Obama sees that, so much the better for him, and for us. The most pro-Israel policy any prospective President can follow is one that brings peace to that country; and that, in turn, won't be achieved unless Palestine's hopes and dreams are satisfied as well.

It's time to move beyond the zero-sum game. Indeed, if Americans want peace in the Middle East, we don't have any option but to do so.