Martin Chulov, Middle East correspondent | July 23, 2008
A PALESTINIAN resident of Jerusalem last night commandeered a bulldozer and rampaged along the street outside the hotel in which US presidential candidate Barack Obama was due to stay today, in the second such attack in three weeks.
The driver was shot dead and up 16 people injured, most suffering from anxiety, in what Israeli police described as a terror attack. Police named the driver as Ghassan Abu Tir, from the East Jerusalem of Umm Tuba. He is a relative of a jailed Hamas MP.
The attack appeared to replicate a rampage on July 2, in which three people were killed when another Arab resident set off through a city street in a larger bulldozer, crushing several cars and overturning a bus.
Yesterday's incident was over within five minutes. The driver was shot first by an Israeli civilian, then by a border police officer. Several cars were severely damaged along with at least one bus that was struck by the bulldozer.
The attack took place less than an hour before the area surrounding the luxurious King David Hotel was due to be sealed off before Senator Obama's brief stay in Israel. The Democratic presumptive nominee was to arrive in Israel this morning hoping to win over Jewish voters, after gaining critical ground in his quest to establish his foreign policy credentials during a whistle-stop visit to Iraq.
He had on Monday used a meeting with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki to reaffirm his commitment to a pullout of US troops from Iraq by 2010 if elected president in November.
As he left Iraq for neighbouring Jordan, Senator Obama's office said in a statement: "The Prime Minister said that now is an appropriate time to start to plan for the reorganisation of our troops in Iraq -- including their numbers and missions. He stated his hope that US combat forces could be out of Iraq in 2010."
He has pledged to withdraw US troops within 16 months of taking office. The time frame now being touted by Mr Maliki is only slightly shorter than that. Analysts predicted that the meeting with Mr Maliki, which highlighted the confluence of Senator Obama's Iraq policy and Iraq's own aspirations for US troop withdrawal, would boost the Democrat's credibility as a prospective world leader in a week when his every move is receiving close attention. It has also potentially complicated his Republican rival John McCain's main argument against him: that a withdrawal timeline would be tantamount to surrender and would leave Iraqis in dangerous straits.
While in Iraq, the Illinois senator gave significant ground on the White House-sponsored troop surge, which he opposed when it was implemented last year, but now concedes has contributed to improvements in security across Iraq. Senator Obama told US media he had not anticipated the convergence of the US troop surge, the Sunni awakening in which a whole host of Sunni tribal leaders decided they had had enough of al-Qa'ida, and the ceasefire by Shia militia. "So what you had is a combination of political factors inside of Iraq that then came right at the same time as terrific work by our troops. Had those political factors not occurred, I think that my assessment would have been correct," he said.
Iraq has been a key point of difference between Senator Obama and Senator McCain, who opposes a US withdrawal along a prescriptive timeline and was a staunch advocate of the surge.
Courting the influential US Jewish bloc and a 60 million-strong pro-Israel Bible belt has also been a critical campaign goal , with both men increasingly turning their attention towards touchstone issues for Israel in the region. Senator Obama will meet five Israeli leaders and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during just over 24 hours in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
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