The CNN Democratic presidential debate. Photo: Screenshot.

JNS.org – In the course of the Democratic presidential primary debate on Tuesday night, the five candidates, led primarily by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), debated a range of domestic and foreign policy issues.

But although the debate took place during a week of ongoing escalation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a wave of terror attacks, and an evenhanded condemnation of the violence issued by the Obama administration, there was only one mention of Israel during Tuesday’s debate. This contrasts with the previously held Republican debates, in which the candidates heavily addressed the relationship between the U.S. and Israel.

The lone mention of Israel was made by former Sen. Jim Webb (D-Va.):

“I believe that the signal that we sent to the region when the Iran nuclear deal was concluded was that we are accepting Iran’s greater position on this very important balance of power, among our greatest ally Israel, and the Sunnis represented by the Saudi regime, and Iran. It was a position of weakness and I think it encouraged the acts that we’ve seen in the past several weeks,” Webb said.

Read the full debate transcript from the Washington Post here.