Israelis Ambivalent About Obama's Visit

JERUSALEM, July 22, 2008 — -- When Sen. Barack Obama visits Israel and the West Bank Wednesday, many observers predict the trip will be met with apathy -- or fear-- on the part of both Israelis and Palestinians.

Michael Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center, an academic research institute, says that on the evening before Obama was to arrive in the country he had to search before finding any news coverage about the trip on Israeli TV. "And it was after the second commercial break," Oren said, "after everyone's already gone off to watch Israeli Idol or something."

Oren says despite the close relationship Israel has with the U.S., people don't follow the elections here.

"Except for a highly informed elite, and the media and university, Israeli is a country woefully uninformed," Oren said. "The American elections are not a huge issue here."

According to Oren, they should be.

"The differences in policy are glaring and substantive," Oren said about Obama and the other presumptive presidential candidate, Sen. John McCain. "They are ripe with ramifications not just for Israel's diplomatic future but the whole region," said Oren, who has just completed a comparative study of the two candidate's platforms. "The American presidency will have the greatest possible impact on Israel's future."

This election is challenging for Obama and McCain here, in part because of President George W. Bush's unflagging support of Israel. "It's challenging to find a president so effusive in Israeli sentiment, making Israel the prime ally of America and extolling its democracy like Bush did in his last visit," Oren said.

While both candidates signed onto Bush's plan of $30 billion in military aid to Israel, they differ on many key issues.

According to Oren, Obama appears to be "flip-flopping" on the issue of Jerusalem. At the AIPAC conference earlier this month, Obama called for an "undivided Jerusalem," a rhetoric which caused an outcry among Arab leaders. "He then backtracked and said that 'undivided' meant simply no barbed wires running through it," Oren said.

That point is not lost on those here who do follow the U.S. elections, Jews and Muslims alike.

"I don't like Obama," Abbas Borse from East Jerusalem told ABC said. "He said on television that he prefers the Israelis."

Palestinian Nisreen Mitwally, 17, is from East Jerusalem and attends an American school. "It's impossible for him to be supportive of us, because he has said he will be supportive of Israel more," she said. "So I guess it doesn't even really matter what I think about the candidates."