VISIT TO HOLY LAND

US President Barack Obama has paid his first visit to the Middle East since being reelected for a second term. He has visited Israel, Palestine and Jordan, but the White House's "shuttle diplomacy" attempt has failed yet again. Meanwhile, progress in the settlement of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict continues to be a major challenge not only for the USA but also for the entire world community, not to mention the Jews and the Arabs proper, the inhabitants of the Holy Land who have sacrificed thousands of lives on the altar of this endless war.

However, it turns out that the purpose of Obama's visit to the region was not only the Palestinian-Israeli settlement.

"Best friends" and skepticism of Ramallah 

During his first term, Barack Obama somehow succeeded in convincing the people of the Middle East that the United States was ready for a thorough solution to the conflict even at the expense of its traditional "special relationship" with Israel. Washington politicians are becoming ever more aware of the fact that without the taming of certain manifestations of aggressive Israeli policies calculated for the patronage and favor of the United States, the latter will not be able to win over the sympathy of the Islamic community and therefore resolve the problem Barack Obama considers (or at least used to consider until recently) a priority in the notoriously intensifying "war of civilizations". This was also facilitated by the development of the "Arab revolution", for which the States even had to "surrender" a number of its long-standing allies - Arab dictators, as long as the events in the Middle East led to the strengthening of US positions in the region. The latter, Washington is convinced, is favored by the toppling of anti-American leaders in the region. However, the strengthening positions of Islamists implementing the doctrine of "Muslim Brotherhood" in countries of the "Arab revolution" do not make US hegemony in the Middle East unequivocal on a long-term basis because America is seeing again that it has no "eternal allies" in the region besides Israel.

"The United States supports Israel because it is in line with our fundamental security interests. Our union is eternal. It is forever," the US president said in Israel. He stressed that the main condition that would guarantee peace in the Middle East "must be a strong and secure Jewish state with no security problems and coexisting with a sovereign and independent state of the Palestinians."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in turn, expressed his satisfaction with the fact that "Israel has no better friend than the United States".

Meanwhile, the Palestinian Authority has described Barack Obama's mission as an attempt to play up to Israel to the detriment of the peace process. It did not go unnoticed for the Palestinians that the US president is not urging Tel Aviv to reverse the construction of Jewish settlements on Palestinian territories as strongly as he did before. Palestinian leaders do not conceal their disappointment that Obama has failed to convince Israel to make a step towards the Palestinians and move the peace process forward.

"The main purpose of the visit is to ensure the security of Israel, strengthen US-Israeli relations and demonstrate that the USA is back", a senior representative of the PLO, Hanan Ashrawi, commented on Obama's visit. A similar position is shared by the radical movement Hamas, which attests to the unanimous attitude of the Palestinians to the goals of US and Barack Obama's policies on the Middle East conflict. According to Hamas spokesman Abu Zuri, Obama's visit to the region "lends legitimacy to occupation and reaffirms the US political support for Israel."

It is indicative that during a visit to Ramallah, the administrative center of the Palestinian Authority, Barack Obama did admit that "the Palestinians deserve an end to the occupation and the ensuing daily violation of their dignity", but urged Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas to drop the requirement to stop building Jewish settlements on occupied territories as a precondition for the resumption of peace talks. Abbas, however, made it clear that the condition remains in force and that the Palestinians expect Israel to stop the construction of settlements before continuing negotiations.

As a result, there is no talk of a breakthrough in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict again. As noted by New York Times, Barack Obama has never proposed a "clear plan to move forward".

However, one event that took place during the visit of the US president to the Middle East points to the fact that Barack Obama was not so much concerned about the difficult task of finding the possibility of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians during his three-day tour as much as about the reconciliation between America's closest allies - Israel and Turkey - in order to promote US interests in the region more effectively.

"A thousand reasons" not to be enemies

As is knows, the relations between Tel Aviv and Ankara deteriorated significantly in 2009 after an attack of Israeli special forces on a Turkish ship "Mavi Marmara" which was trying to break the blockade of Gaza by Israel. During the operation, nine unarmed Turkish volunteers were killed, but Israel refused to apologize and pay compensation to the bereaved families. Obama has secured the agreement of the Israeli government to apologize for the tragic incident in the Mediterranean, which led to a severance of relations between the strategic partners. Prime Minister Netanyahu telephoned his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan and apologized for the "unintentional" killing on behalf of Israel, promising to pay appropriate compensations. According to the Office of the Prime Minister of Israel, Netanyahu and Erdogan agreed to normalize relations between the two countries, including the termination of the trial in Turkey of the IDF soldiers who took part in the raid against the "Freedom Flotilla".

Israeli President Shimon Peres also expressed his attitude to the situation. He said in an interview with the Turkish version of CNN and newspaper H?rriyet that "There are a thousand reasons why Israel and Turkey should be friends and not a single reason to be enemies." Based on this, Peres expressed his willingness to immediately shake the hand of Turkish counterpart Abdullah Gul.

Although Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that the normalization of relations between Turkey and Israel would begin only after the payment of compensation to the families of the killed participants of the "Freedom Flotilla" and the lifting of the blockade from the Gaza Strip, it is clear that the USA has made a significant step toward the establishment of Turkish-Israeli relations. This is not dwindled even by Israel's negative attitude to the idea of lifting the blockade from Gaza. Tel Aviv has actually described Erdogan's demand as "irrelevant". There is a serious attempt to return Turkey into the agenda of US-Israeli policies. But why does the Obama Administration think it necessary to reconcile the Turks and Israelis now? The answer to this question is provided by the aggravation of the situation around Syria and Iran. In order to resolve these problems as soon as possible, Washington needs dialogue, not discord between Ankara and Tel Aviv.

While on a visit to Jordan, Barack Obama informed King Abdullah, who is extremely worried about the rise of radical Islam in the region, in particular the conversion of Syria into a "Jihad-Land," of his conviction that the fall of Syrian President Bashar Assad "is only a matter of time". While in Israel, Obama reiterated that the USA would not allow Iran to become a nuclear power. In addition, the President paid tribute to Israel's right "to self-defense". So the Obama-aided telephone call from Netanyahu to Erdogan has shown that Washington was prepared to act with greater determination in the Syrian and Iranian directions. Against this background, the Palestinian component of Obama's Middle East tour moved to the back burner, which finally confirms that the USA has much greater interests in the region than the settlement of the long-standing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.