Jerusalem – “Obamania” officially began in Israel with the arrival of the Democratic candidate. The Democratic candidate for President of the United States landed Tuesday night in Tel Aviv. Even though the majority of Israelis-– as indicated by various surveys-–would prefer to see the admired Hillary Clinton in the White House, Barack Obama awakens curiosity and fascination in the youth, whether they be Israeli or Palestinian.
Among the officials in Israel, who are not so young, there is much to think about. “In Jerusalem, officials recognize that Obama will be the next president. In fact, they don’t believe he has the strength to surpass Hillary “the Queen.” wrote the ex-leader of the left daily paper “Haaretz,” Yossi Sarid, who speaks of rival John McCain as “someone who is not as intransigent as Bush or as corrupt as Cheney but who is their heir.”
Obama will visit the Holocaust Museum and speak with the leader of the Israeli opposition, the ex-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
Later, he will meet with the head of the Israeli government, Ehud Olmert, and with the Minister of the Exterior, Tzipi Livni, and the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak.
He will travel with the ministers to Sderot, the place in the South of Israel hit hardest by the militant Palestinian missile strike, where they will hold a press conference.
In Jordan, Obama emphasized that if he gains the White House he will work for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, based on the existence of two states.
On the part of the Palestinians, the Democratic candidate will meet with their president, Mahmud Abas, in the Jordanian city of Ramala.
Even though he has confessed his “stretched friendship” with President George W. Bush, the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert, will receive Obama with much warmth and geniality. Although this might be only to escape the local police inspectors who want to interrogate him again regarding the five counts of corruption for which he is implicated.
At the margins of ideology and personal feelings, the Israeli leader will embrace Obama with as much strength as if this could calm the fears that Obama provokes in certain sectors of the Jewish-American population. “I am a true friend of Israel and I will do everything in my power t0 guarantee its security” is a quote we will have heard enough of.
According to American reporters who cover the Near East tour, cited by the daily “Maariv,” Obama’s aids asked that he not wear “green clothing, which is identified with Hamas,” the Islamisist movement that controls the Gaza strip and is condemned by Israel and the Madrid Quartet (U.S., Russian, United Nations, and the European Union).
The King David Hotel in Jerusalem-–which hosted Bush for two months-– said that Obama has demanded “nothing special and all of his requests have been very normal and discreet. He has asked for normal food, salads, lots of fruit, and, of course, hummus.”
The big question is not if in January 2009 Obama will be President of the United States, but who will be Prime Minister of Israel. Everything points to Olmert finishing his term in September with the Kadima party primaries. But anything is possible. Like before, when the public prosecutor presented charges against Olmert, who in that case would resign. Or that the process of revelations might be halted by an explosive and belligerent confrontation between Israel and Iran.
Obama will meet with Olmert, with the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, the Minister of the Exterior, Tzipi Livni, and with the opposition leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. Afterward, he will go to Ramala to speak with the Palestinian President, Abu Mazen. In the political capitol of the
Palestinian Authority, they have put much hope on the young candidate, wishing that he be “more neutral than Bush.” But, with all due respect to the Israeli-
Palestinian conflict, what Obama has in mind is Iraq, the nuclear program of Iran, and the influence of his responses to these delicate issues on the election.
You don’t have to be Albert Einstein-–who rejected an offer in 1952 to be President of Israel-–in order to figure out what wish Obama will write on the traditional slips of paper placed between the Biblical stones of the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem. The historic site–-and, what is more important, the austere photo–-will be this Wednesday night, hours before leaving the country.
While Obama looks to Divine help to gain more votes, his Republican rival, John McCain, has decided on the television route. It is no coincidence that, hours before the Democratic candidate landed at the airport in Tel Aviv, McCain had conceded to an unusual interview on Israeli Channel Two.
McCain’s first missile: “I have visited this region many times and I have a great deal of experience with and knowledge of your problems and challenges.” Second: “Obama is a great and talented orator, but he rejected my offer to have public debates.” And a third blow, maybe more indirect, but yesterday hit the heart of Israel: “I will not negotiate with Iranian President Majmud Ajmadinayad without the conditions previously stated. I will not meet with him while at the same time he advances the nuclear program in order to complete his objective of destroying Israel, as he said before the United Nations. The United States will never allow a second Holocaust.”
The Israeli newspaper Yair Lapid said that if Obama wins “he will be the first neutral and objective president. Our problem with Obama is not his ideas-–he defends positions in line with liberal democracy-–but that on his list of priorities Israel is not so important.”
This will not be his first visit to Israel. In January 2006, he and another Senator took a tour that passed completely unnoticed. The then Minister of the Exterior and director of the Likud, Slivan Shalom, took great pains to make a small hole in his agenda. In 40 minutes of talking, Shalom only remembered two details: “He seemed to me to be a very serious man who meant what he said. I noted he wanted to know everything, quickly. I also realized that we share the same birthday, August 4th, although he was born three years later.”
That unnoticed visitor who was received by the main local leaders will maybe be the next president of the largest world power. His stopover in the Near East is another passage. Because of this, he will give what is just and necessary to both sides, giving the sensation that with him, and only with him, the hope for peace will return to these lands. Better will be to put it into writing on a slip of paper at the Wailing Wall.
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