Obama to visit cabinet-less Tel Aviv despite earlier hints to cancel trip

Zionist US President Barack Obama’s Israel trip will take place as planned this month despite earlier indications that the visit may be canceled if the Tel Aviv regime fails to put together a new government.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest announced Friday that Obama would make the trip to Al-Quds (Jerusalem) whether or not the Israeli PM is able to assemble a coalition government following his party’s victory in January elections by winning only 31 of 120 Knesset seats, The Washington Post reports Sunday.

The White House had earlier left open the possibility that Obama might cancel his first presidential visit to the occupied Palestinian land as Netanyahu still struggles to piece together a governing coalition over a month after the elections.

Earnest added that Obama’s aim during the official visit was to restate his support for “Israeli security” and urge for the renewal of talks between the Tel Aviv regime and the US-sponsored Palestinian Authority officials.

“We’re going,” Earnest insisted during the daily White House press briefing, the report says.

The White House official was further cited by the daily as saying that Obama hopes to “reassure Israelis of the US commitment to their security.”

Earnest also said while calling for reestablishment of talks between officials in Ramallah and Tel Aviv, Obama does not intend to roll out his own plan.

The development comes as Palestinian Islamic resistance movement Hamas has announced that a possible Obama visit to al-Aqsa Mosque in East al-Quds will be a declaration of war on the Muslim world.

The remarks were made on Friday by Hamas representative in the al-Aqsa Mosque Musheer al Masri during an address to a group of Palestinians in Israel-occupied West Bank.

Al Masri called for a third Palestinian Intifada (uprising) against the Israeli regime, if Obama does agree to visit the Temple Mount, where al-Aqsa Mosque is located.

Moreover, a group known as “Palestinians for Dignity” called for nationwide protests against Obama’s visit to the Palestinian territories, in a Saturday statement.

“We call upon our people to demonstrate against receiving he who considers himself Israel’s No. 1 ally,” the group said.

Obama’s planned visit to the West Bank “comes at a time when our prisoners are on hunger strike and weeks after the death of [Palestinian] prisoner Arafat Jaradat in interrogation cells,” the statement added.