Haaretz Correspondent Roey Simioni offers an interesting take on photo diplomacy in Washington.

The only photo released by the White House of the recent meeting between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu shows both men talking seriously in a friendly and calm dinner setting. One might say that the Obama administration could have leaked a photo in which Obama is pointing his finger toward Netanyahu’s face, or another pose which could raise questions regarding the atmosphere of the meeting. However this picture looks like the best of bad lot.

Here is Simioni’s opinion:

A painting hangs on the wall beside the two leaders, which if Netanyahu did not see it, or saw it and did not understand its significance, then Obama, who recently won the Nobel Peace Prize, must have taken the trouble to explain to him its historic importance.

Obama’s message to Netanyahu, if there really was such a message, is quite clear: If you end the blood feud and make a peace of the brave, you will be remembered in history as a great leader, like Lincoln (the former president most esteemed by Obama).

In the picture, which was painted in 1865 by the artist George Peter Alexander Healy, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president of the United States, is seen conferring with William Sherman, Ulysses Grant and David Porter, the commanders of the Union army. During conversations the four men held on the River Queen steamboat on March 27 and March 28 of that year, just over a week before the end of the U.S. Civil War, they discussed the conditions of the peace treaty they would offer the defeated Confederate forces. The accord, even if it had many deficiencies, brought about the reunion of the North and South, the economic recovery of the South, the abolition of slavery and the emancipation of African Americans.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attended a 4th of July celebration at the home of American ambassador to Israel, James Cunningham, on Wednesday and put the notion of “freedom” at the center of his speech. At the same time, he put the positive alongsdie the menace of enemies and threat: “Freedom is our common value which makes our bonds unbreakable and the worst dangerous regimes of the world pursuing dangerous weapons must be stopped for the sake of our common bond: freedom. Otherwise, they will triumph over free societies, and so over our so-called ‘unbreakable’ bonds.”

So, if Iran was unmentioned (and, of course, its diplomats had been “disinvited” from US celebrations because of the election crisis), Tehran was there in spirit. Indeed, you might say that it — and its alleged nuclear weapons programme — is Netanyahu’s glue for the US-Israeli “unbreakable” bonds.

The transcript of Netanyahu’s speech:
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Obamatron is said to be shockingly realistic, even imitating the Obama’s mannerisms. The real President Obama has also provided recordings of him making a short speech and taking the oath of office for use by his mechanical alter-ego.