page_title: Middle Eastern foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration
section_title: Israel
hierarchical_section_title: Middle Eastern foreign policy of the Barack Obama administration / Israel
caption_attribution_description: English: President Barack Obama meets with the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in the State Dining Room of the White House, March 1, 2011. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
context_page_description: On March 19, 2009, Obama continued his outreach to the Muslim world, releasing a New Year's video message to the people and government of Iran. In April 2009, Obama gave a speech in Ankara, Turkey, which was well received by many Arab governments. On June 4, 2009, Obama delivered a speech at Cairo University in Egypt calling for "A New Beginning" in relations between the Islamic world and the United States and promoting Middle East peace.
context_section_description: Before and after the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States, some Jews, including United States Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, questioned Obama's commitment to Israeli security. Obama maintained that he supports Israel and said he would continue the U.S. alliance with Israel as president. The Democratic candidate ultimately carried the state of Florida, with its large Jewish population, in the general election, signaling that his efforts to assuage the concerns of Israeli partisans had been at least moderately successful.
  In January 2009, then-President-elect Obama expressed "concern" over heavy fighting between Israel and Hamas in the Gaza Strip, but said he would leave it to the outgoing Bush administration to express the official U.S. position on the conflict. Obama was criticized by voices on both the left and the right for his reluctance to speak out about the Gazan conflict.
  President Obama sent Special Envoy for Middle East peace George Mitchell on an 8-day tour of the Middle East starting on January 26, 2009 in which Mitchell met with the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Israeli army chief of staff Lt. General Gabi Ashkenaz to discuss the peace process along with other with stops in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, France and Britain where he met with various leaders.
  Special envoy George Mitchell, after holding talks in Ramallah with Palestinian President Abbas, leader of the Fatah which is at odds with Hamas, stated "To be successful in preventing the illicit traffic of arms into Gaza there must be a mechanism to allow the flow of legal goods, and that should be with the participation of the Palestinian Authority." Obama had also stated that "lasting peace requires more than a long cease-fire, and that's why I will sustain an active commitment to seek two states living side by side in peace and security." 
  In March 2009, Obama appointee and ally Hillary Clinton traveled as Secretary of State to Israel. She warned that Israeli settlements and demolition of Arab homes in East Jerusalem were "unhelpful" to the peace process. Clinton also voiced support for the establishment of a Palestinian state—a solution supported by Israeli Foreign Minister and opposition leader-to-be Tzipi Livni, but not endorsed by Prime Minister-designate Benjamin Netanyahu, with whom she had earlier pledged the United States' cooperation.
  
  The Obama administration has repeatedly pressured the Israeli government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to freeze the growth of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. "The United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements," the American president said in Cairo in a June 4, 2009, speech to Muslims. "This construction violates previous agreements and undermines efforts to achieve peace. It is time for these settlements to stop." In the same speech, Obama sharply rebuked Holocaust denial, anti-Semitism, and anti-Zionism, saying of the Holocaust, "Six million Jews were killed – more than the entire Jewish population of Israel today. Denying that fact is baseless, ignorant, and hateful." Obama added, "Threatening Israel with destruction – or repeating vile stereotypes about Jews – is deeply wrong, and only serves to evoke in the minds of Israelis this most painful of memories while preventing the peace that the people of this region deserve."
  In 2011, the United States vetoed a Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements, with the United States being the only nation to do so. Obama supports the two-state solution to the Arab–Israeli conflict based on the 1967 borders with land swaps.
  In June 2011, Obama said the bond between the United States and Israel is "unbreakable." During the initial years of the Obama administration, the U.S. increased military cooperation with Israel, including increased military aid, re-establishment of the U.S.-Israeli Joint Political Military Group and the Defense Policy Advisory Group, and an increase in visits among high-level military officials of both countries. 
caption: Obama meets with leaders of major American Jewish Organizations, including Malcolm Hoenlein, March 1, 2011
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