US Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta is scheduled to arrive in Israel on Tuesday. The senior US official will be arriving to take part in a signing ceremony of a new agreement for increased defense cooperation between the countries.

While in Israel, Panetta will be meeting with a number of senior government officials including Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak.

This visit comes weeks after US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon was in Jerusalem, leading to a Haaretz report that he shared America’s plan for an attack against Iran. That report was labeled as “inaccurate” by officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, which denied the factual accuracy of the Haaretz report.

The daily Yediot Achronot adds that approximately 100 days ahead of the US presidential elections the administration seems to be sending high level officials to Israel on a regular basis as Mitt Romney uses the campaign to sell his message, that President Obama is ‘bad for the Jews’”.

(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)