Former President George W. Bush waited until his eighth year in office to touch down in Israel. His father, George H.W. Bush, didn’t go at all. Neither did Ronald Reagan.
But for President Barack Obama, the call of Israel has always been more urgent.
Jewish leaders have been pressing Obama since he took office to carve out time for Israel, arguing that a trip is needed to repair missteps in the relationship with the key U.S. ally. But the window — and the expectations — for a visit are quickly diminishing, leaving a potential missed opportunity for a president who has been dogged by questions about his commitment to Israel.
“It is an error,” said former New York Mayor Ed Koch, who made peace with Obama in September after being sharply critical of his record on Israel and agreed to support his reelection. “If he didn’t go this year and he didn’t go next year, it would result in an even greater reduction in Jewish support.”
Complaints about Obama stem from the perception that he has been too tough on Israel in his pursuit of Middle East peace — concerns that peaked last spring when the president gave a speech calling on Israel to embrace the country’s pre-1967 borders, with “land swaps” as a basis for peace talks. Although that approach was what American negotiators had contemplated for an eventual agreement, the stark language on borders at the outset of negotiations prompted Republicans to accuse Obama of abandoning Israel and drew criticism from some Democrats, as well.
The White House gave “serious consideration” to a summer trip to Israel, said former Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), a lead liaison for the Obama campaign with the Jewish community.
But domestic distractions piled up, and there are no longer any plans in the works, at least at this point. Obama travels to France, about a five-hour flight from Israel, for the opening of a conference Thursday of the world’s largest economies. And next week, he leaves on a nine-day trip to Hawaii, Indonesia and Australia. The winter holiday season is typically off-limits for foreign travel.
If Obama doesn’t go next year, he would break with the precedent set by his two most recent Democratic predecessors, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, both of whom made the trip during their first term.
The White House wants to reserve a trip for a time when the president can advance the peace process, according to people familiar with administration thinking, but there is no immediate prospect of a breakthrough. And once the calendar ticks over to 2012, a presidential trip to Israel could be viewed as an overtly political exercise, further dampening the likelihood of a trip.
Still, the political lure may be hard to resist heading into a tough reelection fight in which Republicans intend to stoke doubts about Obama’s record on Israel, which he last visited in 2008 as a presidential candidate.
“For other presidents it might have been a less glaring omission than for a president who chose to make these issues a centerpiece of his foreign policy and has had such a difficult time showing that his ‘unique approach’ has succeeded at all, if not set back the prospects for peace,” said Joshua Block, senior fellow at the Progressive Policy Institute and a former spokesman for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. “In many ways, he is in a greater need of going to Israel.”
At a June fundraiser with Jewish supporters, Obama faced pressure on this very question.
A donor asked the president whether he realized that he needed to go to Israel “now” or at least in his first term, according to a source familiar with the event. Obama responded that he would visit the country, but the time had to be right and he didn’t want to go purely for a political benefit, the source said.
J Street, a liberal Jewish group, launched a petition last spring urging Obama “to go to Jerusalem” and detail his plan for achieving a two-state solution for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
“It’s time for a presidential visit to Israel,” the petition stated.
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