Will he or won't he? Romney - Abu Mazen meeting in doubt
Ten days ago, I reported that Mitt Romney is coming to Israel at the end of this month, and that one prominent name was missing from Mitt's appointment calendar: 'Moderate' 'Palestinian' President The next day, I reported that New York Times reporter Jody Rudoren had confirmed to me that 'as of now' there was no plan for Romney to meet with Abu Mazen, although he did plan to meet with Salam Fayyad. I speculated as to why.
On Wednesday, Lahav Harkov reported a list of Romney's meetings here in the JPost that included Abu Mazen. I emailed Lahav to ask who had told her that Romney would meet with Abu Mazen, and thereafter added the following to the post:
I've been in touch with Lahav Harkov, the reporter who wrote this story for the JPost. She tells me that her source for Romney meeting Abu Mazen is two Republican political consultants who have given her reliable information in the past, but that The Jerusalem Post Washington reporter is going to ask for a reaction to the story from Romney's campaign once it's a decent hour on the east coast.That reaction never came. I tried emailing both the Romney campaign and a journalist in Washington who is rumored to be closely connected to the campaign, and got no response. Lahav later changed her article in the JPost to say the following.
The Republican candidate will stay in Jerusalem for two days, Israeli Republican political consultant Jonny Daniels told the Post, during which Romney will meet with President Shimon Peres, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, opposition chairwoman Shelly Yechimovich (Labor) and Palestinian Authority leaders.(Emphasis added mine). I emailed Lahav again to ask her why the change, and she said "It means that I had a lot of people asking questions, so I started to feel less comfortable with specifying Abbas."
So are they going to meet or aren't they? I am guessing that one of three things is happening here.
1. Romney really does not want to meet with Abu Mazen for any of the reasons I mentioned here.
2. Abu Mazen is so firmly in Obama's camp that he doesn't want to give Romney a photo op that might be useful in certain circles in the United States.
3. Abu Mazen is trying to extract a price for Romney meeting with him in light of 2 above.
I'm still trying to find out definitively what's going on, and if you have any ideas, please drop me a note.
By the way, for those who don't recognize the most beautiful ballpark in America, that's Fenway Park in the backdrop behind Mitt and Ann Romney and their five sons.
Labels: Abu Mazen, Campaign 2012, Mitt Romney
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:42 PM
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