Obama Security Aide to Join Mideast Peace Push

The trip by Jim Jones, a top foreign policy aide, will include a stop in Saudi Arabia and coincides with travels by George Mitchell, the U.S. envoy for Middle East peace, to Europe this week and then to the region later in the month.

Obama has promised to make Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking a high priority but has so far made little progress getting the two sides back to the negotiating table.

Underscoring the difficulties, Mitchell's suggestion that Washington could penalize U.S. ally Israel financially to force it to make concessions to the Palestinians drew Israeli ire on Sunday. Normally solid U.S.-Israeli relations have shown strain under Obama's presidency.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sought to reinvigorate diplomatic efforts in meetings in Washington last week with the foreign ministers of Egypt and Jordan.

She reiterated U.S. calls for Israel and the Palestinians to resume peace talks, urging them to focus on borders and the status of Jerusalem, suggesting this could break their deadlock over Jewish settlement building.