Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is slated to meet with Barack Obama. McCain is winning — in Israel

While the European leg of Barack Obama’s much-touted overseas trip will take him to nations where he’s vastly more popular than John McCain, Obama is not nearly as well-liked in Israel. Polls there show Israelis prefer John McCain by as much as 20 percentage points.

Obama’s Middle Eastern swing will also take him to Jordan and possibly to Iraq, but the electoral stakes may be highest in Israel, which has long played a prominent role in American foreign policy and domestic politics.

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Obama spokesman Tommy Vietor downplayed the electoral significance of the senator’s Israel visit, saying the purpose is “to convey to Israeli leaders and the Israeli people his commitment to the special U.S.-Israel relationship and his strong personal feelings of friendship. He is deeply committed to Israel's security.”

If Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, impresses in his visit, it could help him close the international affairs experience gap with his Republican rival, and also solidify his support among Jews and evangelicals skeptical of Obama’s expressed commitment to Israel.

Israelis appear to share those concerns. In the past month, one poll found 36 percent of Israelis preferred McCain, versus 27 percent for Obama, while in another, 46 percent of respondents said a McCain presidency “would be better for Israel,” compared to 20 percent who said the same about Obama.

Those results stand in stark contrast to public surveys conducted in most other nations. A spring Pew Global Attitudes Project poll of 23 foreign nations — not including Israel — on six continents found respondents in all but two countries had more confidence in Obama than McCain to do the right thing in world affairs, often by wide margins. (In the two outlying countries, Jordan and Pakistan, few people expressed confidence in either candidate.)

Obama’s support tended to track fairly closely with widespread distaste for President Bush’s foreign policy — which includes strong support for Israel in its conflicts with the Palestinians and Israel's Arab neighbors.

But that foreign policy has been embraced in Israel, where Bush remains a popular figure.

“Israelis see Bush as having been better to Israel than almost any president before has been,” said Albert Baumgarten, a Jewish history professor at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat-Gan, Israel. Israelis, he said, “feel almost as if he’s their president.”

Baumgarten, a dual Israeli-U.S. citizen who’s supporting Obama, said Israelis believe McCain is more likely to continue pursuing the Bush administration’s foreign policy agenda.

McCain has received mostly positive coverage in Israel, both for his hard line on Iran and for his military service, including his time as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam. That’s an experience valued by Israelis, who are required to serve in the country’s armed forces.

He’s also benefited from the support of Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, the former-Democrat-turned-independent, whose Orthodox Judaism and staunch support of Israel make him a popular figure in Israel. Some Israelis, said Jerusalem-based pollster Mitchell Barak, count against Obama “that the Democratic Party is not a welcome place for Joe Lieberman.”

But McCain’s edge in the Jewish state seems to stem in large part from an antipathy toward Obama. In May, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, then seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, outpolled McCain in a head-to-head matchup by a margin of 57 percent to 18 percent. The same poll, conducted by Barak’s firm, showed McCain with a 43 percent to 20 percent edge over Obama among Israeli voters.