jessicaalva66: Will Obama's visit help 'turn the page' for Israel and Palestine?

Friday, March 22, 2013

Will Obama's visit help 'turn the page' for Israel and Palestine?

Following a warm reception in Israel on Wednesday, U.S. President Barack Obama will fly to Palestine Thursday morning. Obama's Israel visit appeared to center around the topics of Iran's nuclear aspirations and Syria's civil war. His reception in Palestine is expected to be cooler.?

By Crispian Balmer,?Reuters, Steve Holland,?Reuters / March 20, 2013

US President Barack Obama, second left, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, second right, and Israel' President Shimon Peres, left, walk upon Obama's arrival near Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday.

AP Photo/Ariel Schalit

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U.S. President?Barack Obama?faces a stony reception when he travels to the?West Bank?on Thursday for talks with Palestinian leaders who accuse him of letting?Israel?ride rough-shod over their dream of statehood.

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Obama has said he will not bring any new initiatives to try to revive long-dormant peace talks and has instead come to?Israel?and the?Palestinian territories?for simple consultations.

Arriving in?Israel?on Wednesday, the main focus of initial discussions with Prime Minister?Benjamin Netanyahu?appeared to be pressing regional concerns, primarily Iran's nuclear ambitions and the civil war in neighbouring?Syria.

After repeated run-ins with Netanyahu during?Obama's first term in office, the mood between the two men appeared to be much warmer, angering Palestinians, who blame the 2010 collapse of U.S.-backed peace negotiations on the Israeli leader's expansion of Jewish settlements on land where they want their state.

Obama?is to address the decades-old conflict in talks with Palestinian President?Mahmoud Abbas?and also in a keynote speech just hours later to a large audience of carefully screened Israeli students in?Jerusalem.

But after the lofty ambitions of his first term, when he appointed a special envoy to the?Middle East?on his very first day in charge and said peacemaking was a priority, it was clear that?Obama has now set the bar significantly lower.

"I will consider this a success if, when I go back on Friday, I am able to say to myself I have a better understanding of what the constraints are," he told a joint news conference on Wednesday, standing alongside Netanyahu.

The three-day visit is?Obama's first to?Israel?and the Israeli-occupied?West Bank?since entering the?White House?in 2009, and the inaugural foreign trip of a second and final four-year term that began in January.

Sporadic protests flared in the?West Bank?and?Gaza Strip?this week, with Palestinians accusing?Obama of not doing enough to halt Israeli settlement-building on land seized in the 1967?Middle East?war.

In 2009,?Obama bluntly told?Israel?it had to halt settlement construction, but he later backed away from the demand and made no mention of the enclaves on Wednesday.

Posters depicting?Obama were defaced in the?West Bank?cities of?Ramallah?and Bethlehem earlier this week and anti-U.S. sentiment bubbled up on social media.

"Do Not Enter," said one poster put up on Facebook, showing Obama's face with a red line crossed through it. "The people of Palestine do not welcome you here."