Less than a week before the important visit that the US president will make to Israel, Palestine and Jordan, there are some mysteries as to the Palestinian leg of his visit. While the most repeated itinerary lists Ramallah as a city where the US president will be spending a few hours, some sources are giving a different story. More than one Palestinian news site has claimed that President Barack Obama will visit Bethlehem rather than the temporary Palestinian capital of Ramallah.

One of the reasons given for why the American president might want to skip Ramallah is the fact that if he visits the secured and natural offices of the Palestinian president he will have a political difficulty. Pundits (mostly western) are claiming that if Obama passes by the grave of Yasser Arafat which is centrally located within the Muqata’a presidential compound that the American leader will have a difficult choice. Not laying a wreath will be seen as an insult to Palestinians while doing so would be seen in negative terms by some Israelis.

This is precisely the political correctness that has made a mockery of the so called claims that the US is an honest broker when it comes to the Middle East conflict.

A president that will be spending two days in Israel and reportedly a few hours in Palestine is certainly not presenting a picture of neutrality and even handedness when it comes to Israelis and Palestinians. And when Obama will visit the Israeli president and the Israeli prime minister and lay wreaths at the tomb of the founder of Zionism Herzel, the assassinated Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin as well as a wreath at Yad Vashem in memory of Jews killed during the Holocust.