* Obama to urge Arab world to repudiate al Qaeda
* New proposal for Israeli-Palestinian peace unlikely (Adds details and background)
By Matt Spetalnick
WASHINGTON, May 13 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama will lay out a vision for his policy toward the Middle East on Thursday, using Osama bin Laden's death as a chance to recast the U.S. response to political upheaval in the Arab world.
Obama, who has enjoyed a boost in his standing at home and abroad with the death of the al Qaeda chief, will give his much-anticipated "Arab spring" speech one day before White House talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. [ID:nN13219499]
The president is expected to re-commit to seeking an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal but seen as unlikely to present major new proposals, given the impending resignation of his envoy George Mitchell, who led two years of mostly fruitless mediation efforts.
The administration, looking to counter criticism it has struggled to keep pace with turmoil in the Arab world, has been crafting a new U.S. strategy for the region since shortly after popular uprisings erupted, toppling autocratic rulers in Egypt and Tunisia and engulfing Libya in near-civil war.
The killing of bin Laden in a U.S. raid on his Pakistan compound last week will give Obama a chance to make the case for Arabs to reject al Qaeda's Islamist militancy and embrace democratic change in a new era of relations with Washington.
"The president believes very firmly that those who view al Qaeda and those who view terrorism as a means to achieving a better future are fast moving towards ... the dustbin of history," White House spokesman Jay Carney said when asked how bin Laden's death would figure in Obama's policy address.
Pro-democracy movements spreading in the Arab world underscored the region's repudiation of bin Laden's message, Carney said.
He said that Obama's speech, to be delivered at the State Department, would be a "sweeping" review of the U.S. response to political unrest in the Arab world.
"I'm sure he will, as he has in the past, call on governments in the region to respond to those demands through peaceful political dialogue, not just because it's the right thing to do for the people of these countries but because it is in the interest of stability," he told reporters.
"ARAB SPRING"
The speech comes amid criticism of the Western air campaign's failure to break a stalemate between Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and rebels trying to oust him. The United States is also under pressure to take stronger action against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for his violent crackdown on protests.
"The president obviously has some important things to say about how he views the upheaval and how he has approached the U.S. response to events in the region," Carney said.
Analysts are looking for Obama to clarify what has been called the "Obama doctrine," a still-fuzzy prescription for dealing with Middle East unrest that his administration has mostly applied on a case-by-cased basis.
The message he presented in his Libya speech in late March was that the United States supports protesters' democratic aspirations but will take military action only in concert with allies -- to uphold U.S. interests and deeply held values, or where there was an overwhelming humanitarian need.
A complicating factor for Obama's speech is a climate that looks increasingly unfriendly for introducing his own plan for achieving an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal that has eluded his predecessors.
Many Israelis are already unsettled over the implications for the Jewish state from unrest in the broader Middle East, and a new reconciliation deal between the mainstream Palestinian Fatah faction and its rival, the Islamist Hamas movement, has raised further doubts about peace prospects.
Obama's attempts to broker a Middle East peace deal have yielded little since he took office, but he has insisted there is an urgent need to seize the opportunity created by political upheaval in the broader Arab world.
"This president's commitment remains as firm as it was when he took office," Carney said on Friday. But he gave no indication Obama was ready to tackle the issue head-on, an omission that could disappoint many in the Arab world.
Pushing Netanyahu, who heads a pro-settler coalition, could risk alienating Israel's base of support among the U.S. public and in Congress as Obama seeks re-election in 2012. But in the absence of progress on the diplomatic track, the Palestinians are threatening to seek the U.N. General Assembly's blessing for a Palestinian state in September. (Editing by Paul Simao)
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