Barack Obama meets with leaders in Israel and Palestinian territories

- With much of the fanfare of a visiting head of state, Barack Obama met today with top political leaders in Israel and the Palestinian territories and paid a solemn visit to Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust museum.

The Illinois senator saw President Shimon Peres at his home in Jerusalem, then set out for Ramallah, where he met for an hour with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. He flew by helicopter this afternoon to the rocket-battered town of Sderot in southern Israel.

“I’m here on this trip to reaffirm the special relationship between Israel and the United States, my abiding commitment to Israel’s security, and my hope that I can serve as an effective partner … in bringing about a more lasting peace in the region,” Obama said before his meeting with Peres.

Peres urged Obama to strive “to be a great president of the United States.”

“Senator, I have read your two books and was moved as a human being,” Peres told the Democratic Party’s presidential nominee-in-waiting.

At a press conference at Sderot, Obama mentioned that he had met a young boy who lost a leg to a Palestinian rocket, and said he admired the “resilience” of the Israelis who persevere there despite such attacks.

Asked whether he has changed his views about the future of Jerusalem, Obama said “I continue to say that Jerusalem will be the capital of Israel,” but added “that’s an issue that has to be dealt with with the parties involved, the Palestinians and the Israelis, and it’s 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.”

As to whether he would support an Israeli attack on Iran, Obama said he wanted to “avoid the hypothetical by moving rapidly to mobilize the international community to offer a series of big sticks and big carrots to the Iranian regime to stand down on nuclear weapons.” But like the man he is seeking to succeed as president, George W. Bush, he added that “I will take no options off the table in dealing with this potential Iranian threat.”

Obama’s hectic visit to Israel was part of a nine-day trip abroad that has drawn intense media coverage, sparking complaints of media bias from his Republican rival John McCain. The stops in Israel also carried relatively high political risk; advisors were acutely aware of its potential impact on Jewish voters back home.

Israel’s political instability wound up working to Obama’s benefit. Several Israeli politicians angling for power maneuvered to be shown prominently on TV with the candidate.

Several commentators in the Israeli press said the country’s political leaders expect Obama to win the November election. As a result, they wrote, Cabinet ministers were trying to outdo each other to win time with him.

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who plans to have dinner with Obama tonight, may be forced out of office on corruption charges before the next American president is inaugurated.

Two of Olmert’s top ministers, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, are among those who hope to succeed him. They reportedly scrambled this week to be Obama’s guide in Sderot.

The original plan was for Livni to give Obama an air force helicopter tour. But Israeli news media said the Defense Ministry insisted that Barak give the aerial tour, all the better to emphasize to their guest Israel’s vulnerability to rocket fire and terrorist attacks from many sides.

The two ministers struck a compromise: Both accompanied Obama in the helicopter.

In Jerusalem, Obama met with Barak, leader of the left-leaning Labor Party, this morning and later with former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the right-wing opposition Likud Party.

Netanyahu told reporters later that he and Obama “agreed that the most pressing issue concerning the foreign policies of both countries must be to prevent Iran from arming itself with nuclear weapons.”

“We had a very good meeting,” he said.

Obama has criticized the Likud Party and its positions in the past, making the upbeat assessment by Netanyahu striking.

From there, Obama went by motorcade to the Yad Vashem museum, where he laid a white flower wreath on a stone slab that covers the ashes of Holocaust victims. Obama wore a yarmulke for a brief ceremony before a flame commemorating those who died in Treblinka, Buchenwald and other Nazi concentration camps.

“Let our children come here and know this history, so they can add their voices to proclaim, ‘Never again,’ ” Obama wrote in the museum’s guest book.

Security was tight for Obama’s visit, which began hours after a Palestinian man went on a rampage with a construction vehicle, wounding six people and smashing five vehicles, including a city bus. The incident occurred just outside the King David Hotel, where the candidate was staying.

During his tour of the museum, Obama met with Aml Ganim, a Israeli border police officer who, together with an armed Israeli civilian, shot and killed the assailant.

Robert Gibbs, a senior strategist for Obama, summed up the day for the Obama campaign.

Obama and the Israeli leaders “discussed the shared threats and challenges faced by Israel and the United States, with a particular emphasis on Iran’s nuclear program, its support for terrorism, and its destabilizing actions in the region,” Gibbs said. “Sen. Obama reaffirmed his commitment to Israel’s security, as well as his determination to support efforts to promote a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians. They also discussed the prospects for progress between Israel and Syria.”

With the Palestinians, Gibbs said, “Sen. Obama reiterated his support for ongoing peace talks, and agreed that the next U.S. administration should build on whatever progress is achieved in the Annapolis process this year. They discussed how the situation would be advanced by tangible improvements on the ground for all sides, including greater security for the Israelis and greater economic opportunity for the Palestinians. Sen. Obama reaffirmed his commitment to promote a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians.”

 michael.finnegan@latimes.com

 boudreaux@latimes.com