The Palestinians were not mentioned when National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor on Tuesday announced Obama’s visit to Israel early in his second term and also his first as president.
Vietor noted only the “broad range of issues of mutual concern” Obama would discuss with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, “including Iran and Syria”.
White House spokesman Jay Carney later said Obama would also visit the West Bank and Jordan.
Dan Shapiro, the US ambassador to Israel, also played down the Palestinian angle, and in an interview with army radio about the visit’s goals mentioned “the need to return Israel and the Palestinians to the negotiating table” only after twice stressing Iran and Syria.
He also said the American administration set “no conditions or demands” from the Israelis and Palestinians ahead of the visit, and stressed it would take place only after Netanyahu forms a new coalition government.
But the proximity of Obama’s planned visit to that of Secretary of State John Kerry, who is due in Israel and the Palestinian Authority-ruled West Bank later this month, leaves little doubt as to an intention to relaunch the peace process, dormant since September 2010.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said he hoped Obama’s visit would mark the “beginning of a new US policy that will lead to the establishment of an independent Palestinian state”.
Washington’s caution on the professed goals of Obama’s trip aims at minimising expectations on the Israeli-Palestinian issue, in which the US president was less involved during his first term.
The announcement of the trip came as Netanyahu was negotiating a new coalition after the January 22 general election, in which centrist parties that favour renewing talks with the Palestinians did well at the ballot box.
 Upon being formally tasked on Saturday night to form the new government, Netanyahu declared that the next coalition “will be committed to peace”, yet Obama remains suspicious of the Israeli leader’s intentions.
Relations between the two men have been markedly strained.
“It was no coincidence that the White House announced the visit in the midst of the coalition negotiations,” an Israeli journalist wrote in the daily Yediot Aharonot.
“The administration was signalling to (head of centrist party Yesh Atid) Yair Lapid and (head of centrist party HaTnuah) Tzipi Livni that now is the time to be part of the government,” according to the daily.
The message appears to have been well received by Livni, the former foreign minister who led negotiations with the Palestinians during Ehud Olmert’s government between 2006 and 2008.
The main plank in her HaTnuah party’s campaign platform was the need to resume negotiations with the Palestinians, and Livni was the first politician on Tuesday night to welcome the US presidency’s announcement of Obama’s trip.

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