Last week, a brief but violent flu kept me in the U.S. long enough to hear the Clinton-Obama debate. Supporters of Israel are wary of Obama for a number of reasons, some fair and some unfair.

1. Obama sounds like an evangelist selling pie-in-the-sky. This is true, at least at rallies, but irrelevant. Obama does what any candidate would like to do; he's just better at it. It should be noted that a person doesn't vote for the candidate that they imagine will do the best job. There is no reason they should: the chances of any individual's vote being decisive is zero. People vote to make a statement to themselves about themselves. Therefore, a candidate needs to sell himself/herself as the kind of person voting for whom makes a voter feel good about themselves. Besides, in the debates, where grandstanding doesn't work, Obama came off as way more authentic and substantive than Hillary.

2. Obama has insufficient political experience. This is pure demagoguery. I'd sooner rely on a politician with a bit of experience and the intelligence to learn from it than on one with vast experience bumbling through. One of the things that was painfully obvious in the debate is that Obama is way smarter than Clinton.

3. Obama is indulgent of radical anti-semitic Blacks. And I'm indulgent of racist Jews. They're my people. But this would in no way affect my policies. In the debate, Hillary attacked him for only "denouncing" Farrakhan, but not rejecting his endorsement. To which he correctly responded that Farrakhan hadn't offered anything for him to reject, but if she thinks "reject" is a stronger word than "denounce", then he rejects as well. I personally would like to do a lot more than just "reject" Farrakhan, but I couldn't help but feel that Obama made her sound like a cliche-monger.

4. Obama doesn't get the whole Middle East thing. This one is probably true. There are two views of the Middle East. According to one, radical Muslims want to murder infidels and conquer the world, with Israel at the top of their list. According to the other, Muslims have grievances and the key to peace in the Middle East is addressing these grievances. The former is the truth and the second is liberal dogma. This disconnect is common to all but the most hard-nosed Scoop Jackson democrats and Obama is certainly no exception. By the time he and his liberal friends are done engaging and dialoguing, we could be under the mushroom cloud.

5. Obama keeps some really bad company. This one is true, too. But I don't mean the pastor of his church (see 3) or Zbigniew Brzezinski or Rob Malley, with whom he doesn't have a substantive relationship. But I am worried about Samantha Power, whom Obama says is a leading advisor and who is definitely bad news for Israel; Antoin Rezko, a Syrian makher in Chicago politics with whom Obama has done some shady deals; and the Palestinians at the Arab American Action Network, for whom Obama was instrumental in raising money. One of the AAAN guys, Ali Abu Nimah, writes the following at the Electronic Intifada site:

Over the years since I first saw Obama speak I met him about half a dozen times, often at Palestinian and Arab-American community events in Chicago including a May 1998 community fundraiser at which Edward Said was the keynote speaker. In 2000, when Obama unsuccessfully ran for Congress I heard him speak at a campaign fundraiser hosted by a University of Chicago professor. On that occasion and others Obama was forthright in his criticism of US policy and his call for an even-handed approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

The last time I spoke to Obama was in the winter of 2004 at a gathering in Chicago's Hyde Park neighborhood. He was in the midst of a primary campaign to secure the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate seat he now occupies. But at that time polls showed him trailing.

As he came in from the cold and took off his coat, I went up to greet him. He responded warmly, and volunteered, "Hey, I'm sorry I haven't said more about Palestine right now, but we are in a tough primary race. I'm hoping when things calm down I can be more up front." He referred to my activism, including columns I was contributing to the The Chicago Tribune critical of Israeli and US policy, "Keep up the good work!"

And in a recent interview, Abu Nimah says:

I knew Barack Obama for many years as my state senator -- when he used to attend events in the Palestinian community in Chicago all the time. I remember personally introducing him onstage in 1999, when we had a major community fundraiser for the community center in Deheisha refugee camp in the occupied West Bank. And that's just one example of how Barack Obama used to be very comfortable speaking up for and being associated with Palestinian rights and opposing the Israeli occupation.