[IsraelTimes] When he visits the Church of Nativity in Bethlehem next week, US President Barack ObamaIf you have a small business, you didn't build that...
will be looking to signal solidarity with the Middle East's Christian communities, the White House said on Thursday.
Many of the region's Christian populations are embattled minorities, and Obama's trip to the church, believed by many to be the site of Jesus' birth, is intended as a message to the region's oft-persecuted Christian minority.
"It's been a very difficult series of challenges for Christian communities in the region," White House Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communication Ben Rhodes said Thursday on a conference call with news hounds.
These challenges were "not just in the West Bank, but [also in] places like Syria, Egypt and Iraq. And recognizing the very deep and ancient Christian communities in that part of the world is a very important thing to do," Rhodes said.
| Actually doing anything, on the other hand, isn't important at all. |
The millenia-old Christian communities of the Middle East have dwindled dramatically in the 20th century, with severe persecution reported in countries ranging from Afghanistan to Libya, Gazoo to Iraq.
Obama's visit to the region has been framed by the White House as a series of messages. The White House has earnestly downplayed the significance of the trip for policy, explaining that no new peace plan or key policy question is behind the visit.
Rather, officials have suggested, the trip is seen by Washington as a signal to the region's various actors that Washington will remain involved and supportive of its allies.
"My goal on this trip is to listen," Obama told Israel's Channel 2 news in an interview aired Thursday night.
The Paleostinian Ma'an News Agency reported late Wednesday that the president may limit his time in the West Bank to four hours, only visiting Bethlehem and skipping the Paleostinian administrative center of Ramallah.
| He doesn't want to see the riots that are being planned -- no chance of good optics there. |
... a graduate of the prestigious unaccredited Patrice Lumumba University in Moscow with a doctorate in Holocaust Denial...
in Bethlehem, and that together they would visit the Church of the Nativity.
| That's the one where the besieged jihadis peed on the alter and otherwise desecrated the place most thoroughly, as I recall. |
...Fayyad's political agenda holds that neither violence nor peaceful negotiations have brought the Paleostinians any closer to an independent state. The alternative to both, violent negotiations, doesn't seem to be working too well, either...
, together with a group of young Paleostinians, while in the city.
The Church of the Nativity has been a political lightning rod in recent months after UNESCO put it on the list of Endangered World Heritage Sites in June, at the request of the Paleostinians and against the objections of Jerusalem and Washington.
Paleostinians touted the recognition by the UN cultural body as an affirmation of illusory sovereignty.
The visit to Israel will include meetings with President Shimon Peres, nearly half a day of consultations with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu -- Netanyahu and Obama "have spent more time together one-on-one than frankly any other leader since the president came into office," Rhodes noted -- and visits to Mount Herzl, Yad Vashem and the Israel Museum.
The president's visit to Jerusalem is "an important opportunity for the president to consult [with Israeli leaders] on broad range of issues on which we cooperate," Rhodes said, including Iran, Syria, the fallout from the Arab Spring and the grinding of the peace processor.
But "more than that in some respects, this is an opportunity for the president to speak directly to the Israeli people. There's no substitute for the president going directly to Israel... to spend some time speaking directly to the Israeli people," he said.
| Israelis are outspoken. They might well speak directly back. Also not the best optics. |
"The president very much wanted to have the opportunity to speak not just to Israelis, but Israeli young people," Rhodes said.
| But not the ones from that university beyond the Green Line. The president was very specific about not wanting to see hide nor hair of *shudder* those people. Update: The American Embassy says he is not either boycotting Ariel University. There are other reasons they were the only ones not invited. |
| Everybody carefully don't mention Iran. That triggers his Mr. Hyde. |