When Bibi Met Barack

The indispensable Laura Rozen does her best:

The one-on-one meeting between Obama and Netanyahu was supposed to last 30 minutes, but it went on for 70 minutes, a diplomatic source said a very long one-on-one meeting with POTUS. There was also a 20 minute meeting between the larger U.S. and Israeli PM delegations.

The immense damage done by secretary of state Clinton's "unprecedented" gaffe is clearly being walked back as thoroughly as possible. It is easily the worst diplomatic error she has made so far. Rozen parses Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Bill Burns speech to the Middle East Institute on Monday and doesn't disagree with the American Task Force for Palestine's Hussein Ibish:

"Almost everything cited here shows a subtle but noticeable shift back towards the Palestinian perspective."

And for domestic consumption: the appointment of a US special envoy to monitor global anti-Semitism. Which, given the climate these days, is a very good thing. Bottom line: amid deep, deep gloom (thanks largely to Netanyahu's intransigence), some tiny specks of hope.