President-elect Obama must continue the search for a Middle East peace accord, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said today, as he prepared to meet this evening with President Bush at the White House.

Olmert earlier met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to stress the importance of a continued peace process.

Israel has been attacked with thousands of rockets and missiles in the past two years, in barrages coming from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon. Further, Israeli leaders are very concerned that Iran is developing nuclear materials that could be used to build weapons of mass destruction, even as Tehran develops ever-long-range missiles capable of reaching Israel.

Those developments have prompted speculation that Israel may launch an air strike to destroy Iranian nuclear facilities.

Both Olmert and Bush are leaving office, Bush in January, Olmert in February.

Olmert may be succeeded by a hawkish Israeli leader, Benjamin Netanyahu, who served as Israeli prime minister in the 1990s. Netanyahu currently is an opposition leader who at times has criticized Olmert, but more recently has praised him.

Obama, during his election campaign, pledged to support Israel. And his expected choice for secretary of state in the emergent Obama Cabinet, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has said the United States would annihilate Iran with American nuclear weapons, if Iran hits Israel with a nuclear attack.

Israel has worked with the United States and U.S.-based contractors to develop missile defense interceptors, and the United States has aided Israel with a radar to help spot incoming missile attacks.

As well, the European Missile Defense (EMD) system that the United States and The Boeing Co. [BA] would build in the Czech Republic (radar) and Poland (interceptors in ground silos) also might help Israel gain early warning of any Iranian missile attack. This system, however, awaits separate parliamentary approvals from Czech and Polish lawmakers. And the U.S. Congress has placed limits on EMD funding, demanding the EMD interceptors be tested first. They are variants of Ground-based Midcourse Defense interceptors already in place in Alaska and California. (Please see separate story in this issue.)