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Obama and McCain diverge on Israeli-Palestinian conflict

Obama likely to return US to role of 'honest broker.' McCain sees fighting Islamic extremists as paramount.

By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor

from the July 21, 2008 edition

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WASHINGTON - When Barack Obama stops in Jerusalem and Ramallah this week – as part of an overseas trip designed to reassure the American electorate about the presumptive Democratic nominee's national security credentials – he'll be wading into the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Neither Senator Obama nor Republican nominee John McCain have spoken much about how they might resolve this key Middle Eastern issue. But what hints the candidates have given suggest that Obama will probably return the US to a more traditional role of "honest broker," analysts say. Senator McCain would be more likely to subordinate any peace talks to battling Islamic extremism, leaving Israel to chart its own path.

The two presidential candidates have more distinct and well-outlined positions on Iraq (where Obama is expected Monday) and Afghanistan (where he spent the weekend). The German weekly Der Spiegel reported Saturday that Iraq's President Nouri al-Maliki supported Obama's plan to withdraw most US troops from Iraq within 16 months, starting in January 2009. But an Iraqi government spokesmen Sunday said that Mr. Maliki had been "misunderstood and mistranslated" and his comments "should not be understood as support for any US presidential candidate."

The White House said Friday that US and Iraqi officials would set a "time horizon" for the withdrawal of US troops, based on conditions on the ground. McCain's spokeswoman responded that a "conditions-based withdrawal" is something the candidate has always supported.

Both McCain and Obama have called for sending more troops to Afghanistan.

Foreign policy advisers to Obama say the stops in Jordan, Israel, and the West Bank will signal a return to a US policy of placing an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal at the center of a vision for the region, if Obama is elected.

"The differences between the two [on this issue] are not as great as they are on Iraq and Afghanistan, but that's not to say it would all be the same, because it wouldn't," says James Phillips, Middle East expert at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. "McCain is less sympathetic toward the Palestinian side, and while he supports peace talks, I don't see him as too optimistic about their short-term outcome, so I don't think we'd see him diving in to personally oversee them," he says. "Obama seems much more likely to risk his personal presidential capital to try to jump-start talks and get something going."

In June speeches to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the leading pro-Israel lobbying group, both candidates offered support to talks under way between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

McCain noted the talks bringing together Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, saying "all of us hope [they] will yield progress toward peace." But he said that "we must also ensure that Israel's people can live in safety until there is a Palestinian leadership willing and able to deliver peace." He then added, "a peace process that places faith in terrorists can never end in peace" – an apparent reference to the Hamas leadership in Gaza.

In his speech, Obama first set forth his view that Israel's security is "sacrosanct" and proposed a "deepened" defense cooperation between the US and Israel with $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade, uncoupled from any assistance to other countries in the region (read Egypt). He then said, "real security can only come through lasting peace," adding that, "as president, I will work to help Israel achieve the goal of two states ... living side by side in peace and security" – almost word for word Bush's oft-stated formula for peace.

But Obama also said he would "not wait until the waning days of my presidency" – a reference to President Bush, with the Annapolis peace process announced last year, and also to other presidents, including Clinton, who engaged in a full-court press on peace talks in the final months of their presidencies. "I will take an active role, and make a personal commitment to do all I can to advance the cause of peace from the start of my administration," Obama told the pro-Israel AIPAC.

Such a personal commitment, as well as stepped–up efforts to engage Arab countries in resolving the conflict, is what Obama meant when he said in a speech last week that he would "deepen" the US role in the peace process, some advisers say.

In any case, much of what Obama said to AIPAC went largely unnoticed because all the attention was grabbed by another statement Obama made in the speech – that "Jerusalem will remain the capital of Israel, and it must remain undivided."

The statement set off alarms among Arabs and Palestinians, who also claim Jerusalem as their capital, and it contradicted established US policy, which holds Jerusalem as a final-status issue for advanced negotiations.

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