Obama arrives in Israel for talks with leaders

(Adds Obama comments)

BEN GURION AIRPORT, Israel, July 22 (Reuters) - U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama arrived in Israel on Tuesday for talks with Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Obama's visit to Israel began just hours after a Palestinian rammed a bulldozer into vehicles on a busy Jerusalem street near the hotel where the candidate will be staying.

Obama will meet Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem, and will travel to the occupied West Bank where he will meet Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

Upon arriving at the airport outside Tel Aviv, Obama said Tuesday's bulldozer attack was "just one reminder of why we have to work diligently, urgently and in a unified way to defeat terrorism."

He also said he was "absolutely committed to work with the Israeli government to make sure these occurences do not happen."

Obama also expressed his wish to reinforce the "historic special relationship between the United States and Israel."

Speaking in the Jordanian capital Amman earlier, Obama, pledged to start working for a breakthrough in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks from his first day in office but said it was unrealistic to expect a U.S. president to "suddenly snap his fingers and bring about peace".

(Reporting by Caren Bohan; Writing by Avida Landau, Editing by Ralph Boulton)