NEW YORK – American media outlets have already declared US President Barack
Obama’s visit to Israel this week to be a trip void of policy and full of
imagery – a standard the White House seems to have intentionally set for
itself.
The Wall Street Journal stated that the trip has been “purposely
cloaked in low expectations,” while The Los Angeles Times claimed that the
president travels with “quiet hopes,” but few real expectations, on what will
effectively be a “listening tour.”
Politico – an influential, nonpartisan
publication in Washington – called the trip “symbolism on steroids.”
“The
president, it is fair to say, also grew tired of being asked why he hadn’t yet
visited Israel,” Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in Bloomberg.
In press briefings
leading up to the regional trip, which begins on Tuesday, the White House said
plainly that the president will not present a plan for peace between Israel and
the Palestinians, though it promised that he remains “serious” about getting
both sides back to negotiations. It is widely believed that – in public, at
least – the productivity of the trip will mostly be a measure of tactical public
relations success.
That goal, in and of itself, is not to be dismissed,
wrote The New York Times, noting the loaded history of presidential trips to the
Holy Land.
Laying out bluntly that the trip is “lacking substance,” the
Times wrote that “before he even departs, Mr. Obama is confronting the reality
that in a land so freighted with symbolism, any place he chooses to visit, or
not visit, can strike a nerve.”
The president will view the Dead Sea
Scrolls at the Israel Museum, give a speech at the Jerusalem International
Convention Center and will tour the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem, though
he won’t visit the Western Wall. During his 2008 visit as a presidential
candidate, the prayer he put in its cracks was removed and
published.
“Obama could be the first sitting American president to visit
Israel as a tourist,” wrote Thomas Friedman.
“Little is expected from
this trip – not only because little is possible, but because, from a narrow US
point of view, little is necessary. Quietly, with nobody announcing it, the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict has shifted from a necessity to a hobby for
American diplomats.”
Recent polling conducted in both countries indicated
that American and Israeli public opinion was in sync on Obama’s perceived
support of Israel: 39% of Americans believe the president doesn’t support the
Jewish state enough, according to The Hill newspaper, and a Ma’ariv poll claimed
that 39% of Israelis view Obama’s attitudes toward their country as “hostile.”
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