Israel

The wife of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Mrs. Sara Netanyahu, will give First Lady Michelle Obama a Passover Seder plate. And "Ms. Netanyahu will give Bo a rubber hamburger toy," according to the pool report:

From the White House pool report:

Dorothea Wolfson writes:

To prepare for President Obama's trip to Israel this week, it's worth reading Elliott Abrams's book Tested by Zion: The Bush Administration and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.

President Obama revealed a fantasy of his in an interview with an Israeli television station.

“Sometimes I have this fantasy that I can put on a disguise, wear a fake mustache and I can wander through Tel Aviv and go to a bar and have a conversation,” Obama told Israel's Channel 2, according to ABC.

Adam Kredo reports:

A Hamas rocket killed the son of a Gaza-based BBC reporter, not an Israeli airstrike as originally reported by many Western media outlets, the United Nations has confirmed.

Preparations continue for Barack Obama's first visit to Israel as president.  The U.S. embassy in Israel, through its American Center in Jerusalem, is planning "the Obama-ba Festival," which will run all this week, preceding the president’s visit later this month.

Yesterday, THE WEEKLY STANDARD first reported that the State Department was about to bestow an International Woman of Courage Award on an anti-Semite and 9/11 fan. Egypt women’s rights activist Samira Ibrahim had left a record on her Twitter feed of statements quoting Hitler, celebrating the murder of Israelis in Bulgaria last summer, and the September 11, 2012 siege of the U.S. embassy in Cairo.

Israeli media is reporting that President Obama will pressure Israel on his upcoming trip to Israel, which is scheduled for later this month.

The Times of Israel reports: 

The Hill reports:  

Vice President Joe Biden, speaking this morning at the AIPAC conference in Washington, D.C.:

"Our deep commitment to the security state of Israel. That has not changed," said Biden. "That will not change as long as I and he are president and vice president of the United States."