Obama’s Mideast trip

President Barack Obama will meet with three key leaders of the Middle East on his trip to Israel, the West Bank and Jordan.

Arrives in Tel Aviv, Israel; meets with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Jerusalem; joint press conference

Arrives in Ramallah, West Bank; working lunch with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas; joint press conference; speech in Jerusalem

Arrives in Amman, Jordan; meets with King Abdullah

Tours the ancient ruins of Petra; returns to Washington as well as to frustrated Palestinians.

“This is not about accomplishing anything now. This is what I call a down payment trip,” said Aaron David Miller, an adviser on Mideast peace to six secretaries of state who is now at the Woodrow Wilson International Center.

For much of Obama’s first term, White House officials saw little reason for him to go to the region without a realistic chance for a peace accord between the Israelis and Palestinians. But with the president’s one attempt at a U.S.-brokered deal thwarted in his first term and the two sides even more at odds, the White House has shifted its thinking.

Officials now see the lowered expectations as a chance to create space for frank conversations between Obama and both sides about what it will take to get back to the negotiating table. The pres-