Obama makes his bid for Middle East peace
Tomorrow the Israeli prime minister meets the US president at the White House. The following week Obama will also meet the Egyptian and Palestinian leaders. America has signalled it wants solutions in the Middle East, but are the president's guests ready to make concessions?
Late tomorrow morning President Barack Obama will welcome Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu into the Oval Office at the White House. Leave five minutes for the pleasantries, 30 seconds for the coffee to be poured, and there will remain 84-and-a-half minutes left to kick-start what is perhaps the most ambitious bid to bring peace to the Middle East for nearly a decade.
Once again, true to his campaign motto of "Yes We Can", Obama is boldly plunging in where others fear to tread. The next month will see an extraordinary series of meetings for the new president. Netanyahu will be followed to the White House by President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt and Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian National Authority. Other regional allies will be consulted, envoys dispatched, world leaders called and cajoled. And then, in the first week of June, Obama himself will fly to Egypt, where he will deliver an historic speech aimed not just at outlining his own strategy for bringing peace to the Middle East, but also at reframing America's entire relationship with the Muslim world, so damaged during recent years.
More:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/may/17/obama-israel-egypt-middle-east