policy issue just months after winning his

policy issue just months after winning his second term. But the visit will highlight how much the region has changed since he last visited the Middle East in his first year in office, with the rise of Islamist governments and the widening repercussions of civil revolt. After Obama helped topple Moammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011, many in the region wondered when he would emerge again to help shape the course of the tumultuous Arab Spring, which has replaced a pair of U.S.-allied dictatorships with elected Islamist governments. Within the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, much has changed since the direct peace talks Obama inaugurated in September 2010 collapsed within weeks. Israel’s recent battle with the armed Hamas movement in the Gaza Strip left many predicting a wider fight in the future, as divisions deepened within the Palestinian and Israeli electorates over whether talks or war would resolve the conflict. “To make it a substantive trip that is more than a positive photo-op would require setting up a specific framework for an agreement and setting a tight deadline to achieve it,” said Jeremy Ben- Ami, the executive director of J Street, a nonprofit group that advocates the HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_029693