At 4 a.m. Israel time, Barack Obama's and Mitt Romney's faces glistened. Makeup artists know that glistening faces are a precursor to sweat a sign of anxiety or excitement, or perhaps that the air conditioning isn't working properly. Obama was slightly more eloquent than his opponent. The Republican candidate appeared to stall before letting the sentences leave his mouth. In England, this is seen as a positive trait. It is not clear how American viewers perceive it. Both candidates knew that the viewers care about the state of the national economy and employment rates. Therefore, they steered the debate away from foreign policy toward these issues. They focused on global trade rather than the level of democracy among the U.S.'s allies and enemies. Israel was dragged into the center of this debate, both to its benefit and its detriment. Obama had two main arguments: one, that as long as he occupies the White House, Iran will not have a nuclear bomb, and two, that there has never been a U.S. president who has provided Israel with as much defense aid as he has from the Iron Dome missile interceptor to the joint aerial defense exercise currently underway in Israel. The unprecedented defense aid is a documented fact, while the future of the Iranian nuclear endeavor is a matter of speculation, and no one has any solid proof to back up his claims on the issue. Romney, for his part, argued that Obama woke up to the dangers of Iran's nuclear development too late, and mainly and he didn't focus enough on this that Obama failed to handle the Arab Spring properly, and there is plenty of solid proof of that. Romney had a potential knockout in his hands, but the U.S.'s handling of the Arab Spring was only barely mentioned. It may have given Romney a slight advantage, at best. As in the law of communicating vessels, the Obama-Romney debate on this issue will transfer to the Israeli election process. There is no doubt that if Romney wins in November, it would serve as a strong argument for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's camp that there is no prime minister more suited for the job at this time than Netanyahu himself. The same is also true for Netanyahu's opponents should Obama win. It is not clear whether these arguments would be based on truth, but in the battle over public opinion that characterizes an election campaign which doesn't always entirely adhere to the truth these arguments for and against will play a central role on the path to the next Knesset. The televised debate format is an almost obligatory tradition in the U.S. There was an initiative to start a similar tradition here in Israel, but that endeavor was cut short by Ehud Barak in 1999. The last official televised Israeli debate was in 1996, between Netanyahu and then Prime Minister Shimon Peres. Peres, representing the Labor Party, was dismissive and negligent, and he failed. After that, there were some non-official debates: There was a debate between Netanyahu and Yitzhak Mordechai in 1999, when Netanyahu, Mordechai and Barak were invited to speak on a current affairs show. Barak declined. Netanyahu regretted having accepted. There was a debate between Benny Begin and Ehud Olmert during the withdrawal from Gaza, against the backdrop of a Likud referendum on the issue. Now some people are thinking of reviving this tradition, privately, in a multi-participant format. It wouldn't be effective. If at all, a debate should be held between the two leading candidates, and only a week before the election. Given, of course, that both sides agree and that it is modeled after the American format, as it was in Israel 16 years ago.
