Obama lauds 'miracle' Israel

Jerusalem - White House hopeful Barack Obama lauded the "miracle" of Israel on Wednesday, as he met top officials and sombrely honoured Holocaust victims on the latest leg of his international campaign tour.

The Democratic senator, on a sprint through the Middle East and Europe designed to convince American voters of his presidential mettle, was also to travel to the West Bank to swap ideas on peace moves with Palestinian leaders.

Obama, 46, opened his day with talks with Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who was later set to join him on a helicopter tour of Israel's cramped topography, a rite of passage for potential US presidents.

When he met opposition Likud chief Benjamin Netanyahu, Obama quipped: "I could fall asleep standing up," after a gruelling journey through Kuwait, Afghanistan, Iraq and Jordan, with three stops in Europe still to come.

Obama also toured the Holocaust memorial at Yad Vashem, a repository of testimony, pictures and artefacts from Europe's death camps and ghettos, bearing witness to the murder of six million Jews.

He laid a wreath at the Hall of Remembrance, where ashes recovered from Nazi extermination chambers are interred.

Peres lauded

Obama, who leads Republican rival John McCain in most polls of the gripping 2008 White House race, also paid his respects to veteran president Shimon Peres, saying he had been a key player for most of Israel's 60 years.

"You have been deeply involved in this miracle that has blossomed and we are extraordinarily grateful not just as Americans but as world citizens for your outstanding service to your country," Obama said.

"You are someone who has forgotten more than I will ever know on these issues."

Later on Wednesday, Obama was also due in Sderot, a southern Israeli town that has long been in the firing line of rockets and mortars from the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.

Obama, who has promised to work from his first day in office, if elected, to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace efforts, also had a trip to Ramallah planned for talks with Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas.

On Tuesday, however, he said peace hopes were dimmed because Palestinian politics was divided between Fatah and Hamas, and turmoil was wracking Israel's fragile government.

Despite his round of presidential-style meetings, Obama's team insisted he would not attempt to interfere in current US policy on the Middle East.

"The United States of America has one president at a time, that president is George W Bush, so he will not be engaged in any shape or form in negotiations or policymaking or the like," said Obama foreign policy aide Susan Rice.

Though Obama is trying to forge early ties with foreign leaders, much of the audience for his foreign trip is back at home, and he is being especially watched by the powerful American Jewish community.

- AFP