JERUSALEM: A day after challenging Israelis to embrace peace with Palestinians, US President Barack Obama was bracing yesterday to face scrutiny over his strategy on Syria during an overnight stay in Jordan.
Obama will fly to Amman for talks and a private dinner with King Abdullah II, after wrapping up his first visit to the Jewish state as president by paying homage to Israeli heroes Theodor Herzl and Yitzhak Rabin.
While the thrust of his Israel trip was reassurance that the United States would mount an “eternal” defence of the Jewish state in the face of the Iranian nuclear threat, Obama will turn to the agony of Syria’s civil war in Jordan.
Jordan is sheltering nearly 436,000 Syrian refugees, a figure expected to rise to 700,000 by the end of this year, as people fleeing vicious sectarian fighting between Bashar al-Assad’s forces and rebel groups spill over its borders.
Obama yesterday visited the grave of Herzl, the father of modern Zionism, then paid his respects at the grave of murdered premier Rabin.
In a powerful direct appeal to young Israelis on Thursday, Obama insisted that a two-state peace with the Palestinians could still be forged and was their only hope of true security.
“Peace is necessary. Indeed it is the only path to true security,” he told an exuberant audience at a Jerusalem conference centre.
“You can be the generation that permanently secures the Zionist dream,” Obama said, warning that a two-state solution was the only way to ensure Israel remained a Jewish state amid changing demographics.
Obama urged his young Israeli audience to “look at the world through (Palestinian) eyes.”
During a subsequent state dinner at his Jerusalem residence, President Shimon Peres told his guest that he was “moved by the way in which you spoke to the hearts of the young Israelis.”
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas was also pleased with the address, a senior Palestinian official said.
“President Abbas welcomed President Obama’s speech in Jerusalem saying that achieving peace and the option of two states on the 1967 borders are the way to bring security for the Israeli and Palestinian peoples,” peace negotiator Saeb Erakat told AFP.
Earlier, Obama’s edgy news conference with Abbas in Ramallah reflected Palestinian disappointment with his failure to live up to first-term vows to help forge a Palestinian state. — AFP