CAIRO, WASHINGTON AND JERUSALEM — Nearly a month after Barack Obama's election, his reported decision to nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton for secretary of State is causing Arabs and Israelis to readjust expectations of his administration's policies toward the Middle East.
During the campaign, Obama carried the hopes of many Arabs for a new brand of diplomacy more open to their views, one that would revive America's power and prestige in the region and end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israelis viewed Obama as a less reliable friend than John McCain, his Republican rival, or Clinton, who touted a deep affinity for the Jewish state in her bid for the Democratic nomination.
Cautiously, Israelis are now applauding Clinton's all-but-certain nomination as a sign that Obama can be trusted to act firmly against Iran's nuclear ambitions and to refrain from pressing Israel to accept a weak, violence-prone Palestinian state on its borders.
Arabs and especially Palestinians, on the other hand, say the news has damped their optimism that Obama will veer from the Bush administration's hawkish policies and from what they call America's long-standing pro-Israel tilt.
"I was frankly surprised by this choice," said Manar Shorbagy, an expert on American foreign policy who teaches at the American University in Cairo. "Obama's talking about bringing diplomacy back to a U.S. foreign policy that has been militarized under President Bush. Sen. Clinton has different ideas. She voted for the Iraq war and has supported many things Bush has done in his two terms."
The Palestinian Authority, which is engaged in a U.S.-backed effort to negotiate peace with Israel, has refrained from such criticism. "The peace process is a bipartisan issue in American politics," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. "We hope that Madame Clinton will continue the effort to achieve a two-state solution."
Israeli government spokesman Mark Regev said there would be no official comment before Obama announces his choice, expected to come today at a news conference in Chicago.
Clinton is widely viewed in the region as a likely heir to President Clinton's unfinished Middle East business: the all-out push for an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that eluded his administration. Those efforts were resumed by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice only in the last two years.
