The New York Times reports that Obama will announce his push to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict and improve the image of the United States in the Muslim world.
The trip itself is just the most visible aspect of a far more dangerous policy of pandering. The administration appears to have rejected, for example, Israel’s request for AH-64D Apache Longbow Attack Helicopters which the Israeli military uses for counterterrorism activity. Because that Israeli public objects to being the target of several thousand rockets launched from Gaza, the Israeli military will have to fight these terrorists, many of whom are supplied by tunnels from Egypt. The Israeli Ministry of Defense prefers to use helicopters to negate the need for groundtroops; this lowers both Israeli troop and Palestinian civilian casualties. Since the Israeli state is not going to do nothing and allow its civilians to be fodder for Palestinian rockets, Obama is presaging a bloodier conflict.
Oh, by the way, the Obama administration has just notified Congress that it plans to sell AH-64D Apache Longbow Attack Helicopters to Egypt (h/t Martin Kramer).