Barack Obama's second trip to the Middle East since he first became president four years ago will start this time in Israel. His first presidential visit to the region, in June 2009, was to Cairo where he made his “New Beginning” speech, a brilliant and inspiring piece of rhetoric which turned out to be just that - simply rhetoric. However, at the time, America's first black president, the son of a Muslim, was seen to represent a radical break with Washington's purblind and insular world view, epitomized so tragically and destructively by his predecessor, George W. Bush. Obama had promised on the campaign trail that within the first few months of winning office, he would visit a major Arab state and set out his vision for a just and lasting peace for the Palestinian people and the wider region. Those who listened to his words in Cairo could hardly believe what they were hearing. Here was a man who really seemed to understand the colossal challenges facing the region. Here was an American president who seemed prepared to deploy US economic power and political influence to right the wrongs of more than 60 years. The effect of the Cairo speech was electric. It was uplifting. So uplifting indeed that the despair was the greater when it was realized that nothing substantive was changing in US policy. When it came to Middle East policy, Capitol Hill remained in the hands of Zionist lobbyists. America's tacit support for Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands, for the building of illegal settlements on that territory, for the maintenance of an undeclared nuclear arsenal and for the savage repression of Palestinian protest - none of this changed. Obama apologists point to the economic mess his administration was obliged to unravel, the endless challenges to the healthcare program he had also promised electors and his increasingly bitter tussles with Congress over the country's ballooning budget deficit. All this is true. But merely having a series of bad-tempered encounters with provocative Israeli premier Benjamin Netanyahu was hardly a substitute for pushing for some genuine movement toward Middle East peace. Now it is to Israel that Obama is going for the first Mid-East visit of his second term. Zionists who deplored the fact that he did not visit in 2009 are crowing that he is beginning this time with Netanyahu before going on to the West Bank and Jordan, probably toward the end of March. It must be hoped that this is not the further slavish US endorsement of their policies that Zionists believe it to be. Rather that Obama, with the problems of the financial system collapse now off his desk, can focus on the Middle East agenda in the way he promised, but so signally failed to deliver in Cairo four years ago. This time, however, there need be no fine words, no new promises even. The promises Obama made in 2009 were good enough. Now he needs to deliver with actions not more words. The minute he and Netanyahu sit down to talk, the president must make it clear that his patience is at an end. Israel can no longer go on protesting it wants a peaceful settlement while all the time stealing the land of Palestine and oppressing and pauperizing its people. Unless Israel genuinely starts to address the issue of peace, it will begin to lose the support from Washington that it has taken for granted for so long.
