TEL AVIV, Israel
(AP) -- President Barack Obama plunged into the turbulent Middle
East Wednesday, assuring Israel of the U.S. commitment to its security
while cautioning that the region's "winds of change bring both promise
and peril."
Obama declared common cause with
Israel, noting that it was the first stop of the first trip of his
second term and calling the U.S. Israel's "strongest ally and your
greatest friend."
Israeli President Shimon
Peres welcomed Obama, declaring that "A world without America's
leadership, without her moral voice, would be a darker world. A world
without your friendship, would invite aggression against Israel."
Obama's
trip is his first visit to the country - and only his second to the
Middle East, outside of a quick jaunt to Iraq - since taking office. He
will also be making his first trips as president to the Palestinian
Authority and Jordan this week. But on an itinerary laden more with
symbolism than substance, an Israel that is increasingly wary of
developments in Syria and Iran is Obama's main focus.
Adding
yet another dimension to the trip, Obama landed amid new were new
questions about the Syrian regime's possible use of chemical weapons.
Even
before leaving Tel Aviv's airport, Obama offered a vivid display of
America's commitment to Israeli security by visiting a missile battery
that is part of Israel's Iron Dome defense from militant rocket attacks.
The United States has invested hundreds of millions of dollars in
developing the system with Israel.
Obama and
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu toured the battery on the tarmac of
the airport, meeting and chatting with soldiers who operate the system.
Israel credits Iron Dome with intercepting hundreds of rockets during a
round of fighting against Gaza militants last November.
As he arrived, Obama joked to Netanyahu on the tarmac that he was "getting away from Congress."
Following the arrival ceremony at the airport, Obama was headed to Jerusalem for meetings with Israeli leaders.
Obama
faces an Israeli leadership and public anxious to hear the president
affirm America's commitment to the security of the Jewish state while
standing on their soil.
Obama sparred
frequently with Netanyahu over the Palestinian peace process during his
first term. And despite public assurances from both sides that relations
otherwise remained solid, the president endured four years of criticism
from pro-Israel advocates and conservatives in the U.S. and numerous
commentators in Israel for not doing enough to back the Mideast's only
stable democracy in the face of growing threats to its existence.
So
even though U.S. officials have set expectations low and previewed no
significant policy announcements, there is a clear metric to measure the
success of Obama's three-day stay in Israel and the West Bank: how much
he is able to reverse the perception that his administration is not
fully committed to Israel's security.
The
centerpiece of the first leg of the trip will be a speech to Israeli
university students on Thursday, during which Obama is expected to renew
U.S. assurances to stand by Israel as it seeks to counter threats from
Iran and protect its people in the midst of civil war in neighboring
Syria, where new questions were raised Tuesday about the Assad regime's
possible use of chemical weapons.
Ahead of
Obama's visit, an Israeli Cabinet minister, Yuval Steinitz, said it is
"apparently clear" that chemical weapons were recently used in Syria,
and that the alleged attack will be a main topic of conversation with
the president. The Obama administration said Tuesday it had no evidence
to support the regime's claims that rebels were responsible for a
chemical attack.
Obama has declared the use,
deployment or transfer of the weapons would be a "red line" for possible
military intervention by the U.S. in the Syrian conflict.
Before
he even leaves Ben Gurion airport for the 45-minute helicopter flight
to Jerusalem, Obama will stop to view an Iron Dome battery, part of the
missile defense system that the United States has poured hundreds of
millions dollars into developing. Israeli officials credit Iron Dome
with significantly reducing the impact of rockets fired into its
territory from militants in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon and don't want to
see U.S. funding cut due to budget constraints.
Once
in Jerusalem, a potent religious symbol as well as one of the main
obstacles to an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal, Obama will make several
cultural stops - to see some of the ancient Dead Sea Scrolls and pay
tribute to the founder of modern Zionism - intended to show his
appreciation for the Jewish people's millennia-old connection to the
land that is now Israel as well as the horrors of the Holocaust. He will
also visit the Church of Nativity, which is revered throughout
Christiandom as the site where Jesus was born.
Obama
will make an almost perfunctory visit to the cash-strapped Palestinian
Authority's headquarters in the West Bank, where he will meet embattled
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to assure him that an independent
Palestinian state remains a U.S. foreign policy and national security
priority. Despite not coming with any new plan to get the stalled peace
process back on track, Obama plans to make clear that his administration
intends to keep trying to get talks relaunched.
Preventing
Iran from developing a nuclear weapon and the Syrian crisis from
spilling over into the broader region are top priorities of Israel and
the United States, although they have differed in the past on precisely
how to achieve both ends.
Iran, in particular,
has been a vexing issue, as Iranian leaders continue to defy pressure
from the U.S. and other world powers to prove that its nuclear program
is peaceful and not, as many suspect, cover for atomic weapons
developments.
Israel repeatedly has threatened
to take military action should Iran appear to be on the verge of
obtaining a bomb. The U.S. has pushed for more time to allow diplomacy
and economic penalties to run their course, though Obama insists
military action is an option.
But there are
differences over a timeline for possible military action. Netanyahu, in a
speech to the United Nations in September, said Iran was about six
months away from being able to build a bomb. Obama said last week that
the U.S. thinks it would take "over a year or so for Iran to actually
develop a nuclear weapon."
Obama will close
out his Mideast trip with a 24-hour stop in Jordan, an important U.S.
ally, where his focus will be on the violence in Syria. More than
450,000 Syrians have fled to Jordan, crowding refugee camps and
overwhelming aid organizations.
In his talks
with Jordan's King Abdullah, Obama also will try to shore up the
country's fledgling attempts to liberalize its government and stave off
an Arab Spring-style movement similar to the ones that have taken down
leaders elsewhere in the region.
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