Obama Meets With Israeli Leaders

Barack Obama got an early start in Israel today, breakfasting with Ehud Barack and meeting Shimon Peres and opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu before a stop at Yad Vashem, to lay a wreath at the Holocaust memorial, the New York Times reports. Peres greeted him warmly, saying he hoped for a “great president of the United States. That is the greatest promise for us and the rest of the world.”  

Netanyahu said Obama had agreed that preventing Iran from going nuclear was a top priority, and vowed never to compromise Israeli security. He also asked how the senator was feeling in the middle of his whirlwind tour. “I could fall asleep standing up,” Obama replied. But there’s no rest for the weary; Obama’s next stop is the West Bank, where he’ll meet with Palestine’s Mahmoud Abbas. (More Barack Obama stories.)