Barack Obama’s schedule and statements in the Middle East make clear
his determination to court Israeli opinion, writes David Hearst for the Guardian.

When a US presidential candidate arrives in town, there is only one
question on every Israeli’s mind: how good a friend to Israel will this
man be? Eager to answer this question, Barack Obama said: “Let me be
absolutely clear. Israel is a strong friend of Israel’s.” That much is
of course beyond dispute – his aides said he had intended to say the
United States.

The bungled statement was an early sign of his
nerves on a trip where every phrase he utters will be linguistically
x-rayed for incipient signs of bias. Mr Obama had every right to be
nervous.

Just yards from the King David hotel where Mr Obama was
due to stay, a Palestinian driver of a bulldozer went on the rampage
injuring 16 Israeli civilians, one seriously, before being shot dead by
a civilian and a policeman. It was the second time in three weeks that
an attack had been launched by Palestinian resident of East Jerusalem
with a blue identity card, which gives the holder virtually all the
rights of an Israeli citizen except the right to vote.

The attack
sparked a fresh debate about the rising involvement of the Palestinian
residents of East Jerusalem in attacks, an arena regarded as the soft
underbelly of Israel’s network of walls and barriers sealing off the
West Bank, because East Jerusalem is regarded by Israel as annexed
territory.

The latest bulldozer attack sparked calls for the
resumption of “punitive acts” and the razing the homes of men involved
in the attacks, even though the last time this form of collective
punishment was used, it had no discernible deterrent effect. During the
second intifada, the Israeli military demolished 270 houses, but
stopped doing so after a defence committee said its deterrent effect
had not been established.

Mr Obama was quickly asked to tick
this box. “It’s just one more reminder why we have to work diligently,
urgently and in a unified way to defeat terrorism,” Mr Obama said.
“There are no excuses.” He ticked another Israeli box for good measure.
He said there was sufficient evidence that the Syrians were developing
a nuclear reactor on the site that Israelis jets demolished last year.

Mr
Obama’s schedule of meetings today also speaks volumes about the
straitjacket of policy positions he has slipped into for the duration
of this visit. After breakfast with the former Israeli prime minister
Ehud Barak, who has burnished his hawkish credentials as a tough and
unyielding defence minister, Mr Obama went on to meet another strong
contender for the premiership – the Likud leader, Benjamin Netanyahu.

After
that, the now compulsory visit to Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial,
followed by a meeting with the Israeli president, Shimon Peres. The
afternoon beckons with a helicopter tour of the “seam” between Israel
and the West Bank, which ends in Sderot, the southern immigrant town
that has born the brunt of rocket fire from Gaza.

In between
these two sections of Mr Obama’s itinerary, he meets the Palestinian
president, Mahmoud Abbas, in his office in the Muqata in Ramallah. In
other words, of the 36 hours Mr Obama has devoted to this visit, he
will spend around 45 minutes talking to Palestinian spokesmen. This is
one measure of Mr Obama’s concern to court Israeli opinion.

But
it is at least better than his Republican rival John McCain achieved on
his last visit here, where he only managed to telephone Mr Abbas. And
there is no question of Mr Obama crossing into Gaza, a land officially
designated by Israel as a hostile entity. It will be in Sderot, not
Gaza City that Mr Obama will give his first and only press conference
of the day.

Before Mr Obama’s arrival, there was another incident
that offered a brief glimpse of the cauldron of passion and bitterness
bubbling just below the surface of what constitutes everyday life here.
An Israeli soldier was secretly filmed firing a rubber bullet at a
Palestinian man who had been detained, blindfolded and handcuffed after
a demonstration against the West Bank barrier. The soldier was less
than two metres away from the Palestinian detainee and aimed at his
foot. Happily the soldier missed, crazing the victim’s big toe. A
military investigation has been launched. Mr Obama has yet to comment
about that.