Jewish-American leaders push for Obama visit to Israel

WASHINGTON - Should U.S. President Barack Obama visit Israel? This was perhaps the strongest point of agreement during an unusual conference of Jewish leaders held in Washington this week. As the cold peace sets in between Jerusalem and Washington, some 60 Jewish leaders (plus one White House official) met for two days, in a bid to brainstorm recommendations as to how to warm up the relationship.

The conference, organized by the Jewish People Policy Planning Institute, and led by attorney Stuart Eizenstat, was attended by delegates from across the local political spectrum - from AIPAC executive director Howard Core and Deputy Chairman of the Conference of Presidents Malcolm Hoenlein, to AIPAC's challenger from the left, Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street; from Elliot Abrams, former special assistant to president George W. Bush, to Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg.

Standing out among this varied crowd was Senior Director of Middle East and North Africa for the National Security Council, Dan Shapiro. His role at the conference was to stress Obama's commitment to Israel and its security. He noted that he had said the same thing to Arab statesmen.

There was general agreement that there had been some improvements. "There's a basic understanding that you can't go [at this] head on," one participant said. "The growing strength of the government in Israel and [Shimon] Peres's support for [Benjamin] Netanyahu indicated stability - and the White House can't ignore it anymore."

As could perhaps be expected, there was little agreement on the most contentious issues, such as settlements and borders, but all agreed to recommend that Obama visit Israel soon.

"Our job is not to mediate, but to make sure Israel isn't forced to do something that won't work," said Hoenlein. "We've already seen what happened when they forced the Gaza elections."