Obama commits to defend security of Israel

Emphasizes the importance of negotiation

Barack Obama was escorted on a tour of the Hall of Names at Yad Vashem Holocaust History Museum in Jerusalem yesterday by museum chairman Avner Shalev. Obama, who wound up a tour of the Middle East, pledged strong support of Israel. (Daniel Berehulek/Pool)

SDEROT, Israel - Barack Obama's promise to serve as the nation's envoy-in-chief faced a test run yesterday, as he practiced a sort of shuttle shadow diplomacy in an armored Volvo limousine moving between Israeli and Palestinian seats of power.

Obama aides have emphasized that the presumptive Democratic nominee's week-long foreign tour was not designed as a policymaking mission. "The United States has one president at a time, and that president is George W. Bush," said his foreign affairs adviser, Susan Rice.

Yet Obama has pledged that he would preside over a new era of outreach and evenhandedness in US policy toward the Middle East. On yesterday's tour - a routine circuit for visiting dignitaries fraught with unique political challenges - Obama committed to defend Israel's security while emphasizing the value of negotiations in resolving the region's most vexing problems.

"It's the job of the United States, I think, to make sure that peace is centered and promotes Israel's long-term security," Obama said in an often-attacked Israeli town on the Gaza border. "We need a peace deal that's going to mean something, and it's not going to be meaningful if Israel's security is not part of that package."

Unlike his Republican opponent, John McCain, who did not visit Palestinian territory on a similar trip to the region in March, Obama traveled to Ramallah, in the West Bank, to meet with Palestinian Authority leaders.

Obama's campaign said the candidate's comment last month to a pro-Israel group in Washington that Jerusalem "must remain undivided" was not discussed. The final status of Jerusalem is perhaps the most contentious element of territorial negotiations between the two sides.

"That's an issue that has to be dealt with by the parties involved, the Palestinians and the Israelis, and it is not the job of the United States to dictate the form in which that will take, but rather to support the efforts that are being made right now to resolve these very difficult issues that have a long history," Obama told reporters later.

Yet, only about 90 minutes of Obama's day was spent in Palestinian territory: The rest was spent meeting with Israeli officials and touring sites they have bestowed with symbolic power as they seek international backing for a forceful stance on national-security interests. That continued this morning, as the Democratic presidential candidate made a surprise pre-dawn visit to Jerusalem's Western Wall, wearing a Jewish skullcap and placing a prayer he had written in the wall.

While in Israel, Obama seemed to put as hawkish a face possible on his agenda. He said he would refuse to negotiate with Hamas, the militant Palestinian faction that controls the Gaza Strip, and framed a willingness to engage Iran - including a personal encounter with its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad - as part of an aggressive stance toward the country, not an accommodating one.

Obama said it was important "to exhaust every possible avenue" with the Iranian government, while suggesting obliquely that a failed diplomatic effort could help efforts to marshal international support for other forms of action.

"I bring to Sderot an unshakable commitment to Israel's security," Obama said on a stop in a town that has regularly come under rocket fire from Palestinian militant groups in Gaza, including Hamas. Obama visited a family whose home was damaged in such an attack, and addressed reporters before a display of rocket shells at the local police station.

"It's important for people to come to Sderot, to understand the gravest security situation outside the Iranian threat," said Marcus Sheff, executive director of Israel Project, a non-partisan group that helped organize Obama's visit.

Obama traveled to Sderot by helicopter with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni "to see firsthand the topography, the terrain, and the strategic implications of the terrain," according to Rice. The helicopter tour has become standard fare for Israeli officials trying to demonstrate the country's cramped quarters: President Bush credits a similar expedition guided by then-foreign minister Ariel Sharon with giving him a new perspective on the country's security concerns just prior to his first presidential campaign.

In the morning, Obama toured Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum and memorial, where he rekindled an "eternal flame" and lowered a white-chrysanthemum wreath onto a slab containing victims' ashes, with his head bowed and hands clenched at his waist. Obama wore a white yarmulke that stood out, in a photo-friendly way, against the dark room - others in his entourage were offered black skullcaps.

"May we remember those who perished, not only as victims but also as individuals who hoped and loved and dreamed like us, and who have become symbols of the human spirit," Obama wrote in the guest book.

Obama, who has said that he wanted to use his trip to get to know foreign leaders "who I expect to be dealing with over the next eight to 10 years," ended his day with dinner at the residence of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. But given the chaotic world of Israeli politics, the series of five meetings held earlier with other political figures in the country could be more useful: Many of them could end up greeting the next US president as a peer.

One of them, opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu, welcomed Obama by asking how he felt.

"I could fall asleep standing up," the senator replied.

Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in yesterday's Globe about Barack Obama's visit to Israel mischaracterized the role that the Israel Project played. The nonpartisan group was not involved in organizing Obama's visit to Sderot.