Obama to pay fast visit to Israel, West Bank

US presidential candidate Barack Obama will pay a lightning visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank for talks on Wednesday, where he will seek to prove his foreign policy mettle in one of the world's hotspots.

He is to meet a host of Israeli and Palestinian leaders, visit the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial and tour Sderot, a town on the border with the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip that has frequently been the target of Palestinian rocket attacks, officials said.

The Illinois Democratic senator will then have dinner with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert before ending his 15-hour day with a visit to the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, Judaism's holiest site.

Obama, 46, will arrive after visiting Afghanistan, Iraq and Jordan on a tour that will also take in Europe and is aimed at boosting his international policy credentials.

In his talks with Olmert in Jerusalem and with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas in the West Bank town of Ramallah, Obama is expected to hear and voice views on the sluggish US-backed Middle East peace process.

Obama is also expected to encounter Palestinian suspicion over remarks he made in June that Jerusalem should be the undivided capital of Israel, which caused Arab outrage and forced him to retract.

The peace talks, which US President George W. Bush launched late last year at an international conference in Annapolis, Maryland, have failed to make tangible progress. As a result,the declared goal by all sides to ink a deal before Bush leaves office in January seems unattainable.

Obama is also expected to discuss with Olmert efforts to halt Iran's nuclear programme. Israel, the United States and other Western countries suspect it is aimed at developing an atomic bomb, something Tehran denies.

"The prime minister is looking forward to meeting Senator Obama. They will exchange views on a whole series of issues including bilateral relations between Israel and the United States, the peace process and threats to regional security," Olmert spokesman Mark Regev told AFP.

Many in Israel, however, fear some of Obama's campaign positions, most notably his carrot-and-stick diplomatic approach towards Iran.

"There is a certain fear in Israel because that if there is one thing that Obama represents it is change, and Israel doesn't like change," a senior Israeli official said.

"We were very pleased with the Bush administration's approach towards Israel, especially towards Iran. I doubt whether Obama will have a sufficiently aggressive approach to the Iranian nuclear threat.

(Agencies)