10 February 2013 --=It seems the first foreign visit http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4341548,00.html of Barack Obama http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/barac=-obama's second term will be to Israel chttp://www.guardian.coruk/world/israel> . In making that choice, the president sends an important signal =nd one that is long overdue. What is optimistically still referred to as t=e peace process has been stalled for several years. There is plenty of bla=e to go around for that. But a small part of it rests with Mr Obama himself.

In his first term h= didn't visit Israel once, not even, Israelis complain, when he was in the=neighbourhood. That was a mistake, limiting the influence he could exert o=er Israel's government and, more importantly perhaps, its people. As Bill Clinton, the last US president to come close =o a Middle East breakthrough, advises today's diplomats: Israelis need to =now that if the tanks were ever to start rolling in from across the Jordan= you'd be there in the trenches with them. An unlikely scenario these days perhaps, but the emotion is rea=.

Still, an Obama vis=t can do more than offer reassurance of US solidarity. The mere announceme=t of the trip, scheduled for 21March but liable to slip if there are dela=s in the formation of a new Israeli government, can itself have an impact. http://www.al-monitor.co=/pulse/originals/2013/02/why-is-obama-in-such-a-rush-to-visit-israel.html Some have argued that the White House published its travel plans now, e=rlier than necessary, in order to remind the parties to ongoing coalition =alks in Israel that peace should be a factor in their negotiations. With M= Obama coming, perhaps Binyamin Netanyahu and his potential partners will be obliged to think not only of =urrently dominant domestic issues but also of relations with their most im=ediate neighbours. If that was indeed the motive, it may be paying off. Is=ael's outgoing deputy foreign minister, the hawkish Danny Ayalon, now says Israel should accept the UN's recent up=rade of the Palestinians' status — a move he and his government fiercely=rejected last November.

For Palestinians to=, an Obama visit should be a boost — especially if he visits the West Ba=k cities of Ramallah or, as has been mooted, Jericho. The message will be =hat, for all the talk of a Washington foreign policy pivot to Asia, the Middle East is still a US priority and t=e Palestinian issue has not been forgotten. The prestige of a presidential=visit will strengthen those Palestinians who advocate the path of diplomac= over the path of violence — welcome, given that events in recent months have tended to have the reverse effect.=/span>

Bitter experience s=ggests no one should expect too much of a single visit, even if the speculation http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,1-4342870,00.html is right and Mr Obama chairs a mini-summit, perhaps in =ordan, between Mr Netanyahu and Mahmoud Abbas. But the fact that the presi=ent is coming, and that he has in John Kerry a new secretary of state long=engaged in the issue and bitten, says one colleague, by "the peace bug", are small grounds for ho=e in a region that does not have many.

Articl= 2.
Bloomberg
The Silence o= the Drones
Fouad Ajami =/p>

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