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RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) -- Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas wants Barack Obama to take away one message from their meeting Wednesday -- he should focus immediately on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict if elected, or any gains made in peace talks could vanish.

Obama, the presumptive Democratic candidate, made time in his jam-packed Mideast schedule for what is to be a 45-minute meeting with Abbas.

During a stop in Jordan on Tuesday, Obama suggested that he was open to the Palestinians' request, saying that he'd do his best to bring Israelis and Palestinians together, "starting from the minute I'm sworn into office." However, he also cautioned that it is "unrealistic to expect that a U.S. president alone can suddenly snap his fingers and bring about peace in this region."

Obama was to meet Abbas at his government headquarters in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Security was tight, with helmeted riot police carrying truncheons and rifles lining the access road to the walled compound.

The candidate's visit in the West Bank generated some goodwill here, particularly since his Republican rival, John McCain, did not visit the Palestinians in a Mideast trip earlier in the summer. A Ramallah baker said he's named a bagel after Obama, to thank him for not ignoring the Palestinians.

Like people elsewhere in the region, Palestinians are fascinated with the U.S. campaign. The success of a black candidate may also have helped improve the tarnished U.S. image in the eyes of some.

Wael Hamad, a 35-year-old mechanic from Ramallah, said he expected Obama, who is black, to be more understanding of Palestinian suffering because of the hardships suffered by blacks in the United States.

However, deep skepticism about U.S. policy prevailed.

Most Palestinians believe the U.S. is so irrevocably biased toward Israel that it will make little difference whether Obama or McCain is elected U.S. president, said pollster Jamil Rabbah.

"The American interest has always been with Israel, not with us," said 22-year-old college student Mohammed Hatem. "We have seen a lot of (U.S.) leaders who say they are going to work to get the Palestinian people an independent state, and they end up serving Israel."

Obama deepened those fears in a speech to American Jewish leaders in June when he said Jerusalem must remain Israel's undivided capital -- even though no U.S. government has recognized Israel's 1967 annexation of east Jerusalem, the sector claimed by the Palestinians as their future capital.

Obama later clarified that he believes the future of Jerusalem is to be determined in negotiations -- Washington's longstanding policy. The fate of the city is currently on the table in U.S.-backed Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Kadoura Fares, a legislator in Abbas' Fatah movement, said Obama's slip-up on such a key issue caused serious damage. "His correction was not enough," Fares added. "He should have said he recognizes the Palestinian right to freedom."

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