All Blog Posts from World Watch

Israeli TV newscasters Tuesday night interpreted a photo taken Monday in the Oval Office of President Obama talking on the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as an "insult" to Israel.

They saw the incident as somewhat akin to an incident last year, when the Iraqi reporter threw a shoe at President Bush in Baghdad.

It is considered an insult in the Arab world to show the sole of your shoe to someone. It is not a Jewish custom necessarily, but Israel feels enough a part of the Middle East after 60 years to be insulted too.

Was there a subliminal message intended from the White House to Netanyahu in Jerusalem, who is publicly resisting attempts by Mr. Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to force Israel to stop any kind of settlement activity in occupied territories once and forever?

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An Israeli pundit, former U.N. Ambassador Dan Gillerman, just said in a live TV interview that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting with President Obama is the most significant session between leaders of the two countries in decades.

I remember interviewing Gillerman in 2007 at the Annapolis summit, where President Bush was promoting an overall Middle East peace agreement.

A representative of almost every Arab country was there and Gillerman told me how important it was to move ahead on a peace agreement with the Palestinians.

That was then, this is now.

Israel's government is now fronted by "Bibi" Netanyahu, whom Israelis turned to out of frustration with the Palestinians.

Netanyahu is in no rush to reach a peace treaty and, though he sees room for a "two-state solution," down the road, does not want to talk about Palestinian statehood now. He feels that would turn the West Bank and Gaza Strip into what Israelis like to call "Hamas-stan."

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