O'Reilly: Here's how Benjamin Netanyahu can get a meeting
Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu don't like each other.
That much is clear.
But they're really going to have to put aside personal grudges -- and fast -- because the world is getting scarier by the day.
Obama's refusal to agree to a meeting with the Israeli prime minister when he is in the United States this month was a lousy idea. Americans aren't the only ones who noticed it. Israel's enemies surely did, too, just as they noted, I'm sure, some premature reports that the president would meet with Egyptian president and former Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi next week. (No meeting is, in fact, scheduled).
Not meeting with Netanyahu, with all that's going on in the Middle East, is madness. Any perceived daylight between the United States and Israel is a dangerous thing for the Jewish State. The president's refusal to meet is virtually a straight-arm to Israel on the world stage.
It doesn't seem like the Obama administration is going to easily relent, so here are five practical ideas for getting a meeting with the U.S. president that Bibi might consider:
1. Dinner with Barack
By logging onto BarackObama.com and clicking on "Dinner with Barack," Netanyahu can enter his name to try to win "the following prize package: round-trip tickets for winner and a guest from within the fifty U.S. States, DC, or Puerto Rico to a destination to be determined by the Sponsor; hotel accommodations for winner and a guest; and dinner for winner and a guest with President Obama on a date to be determined by the Sponsor (approximate retail value of all prizes $4,800). Odds of winning depend on number of entries received."
The "Dinner with Barack" promotion is open only to U.S. citizens, but I'm sure they'd take the Harvard- and MIT-educated Netanyahu. But just in case, I entered, too, and I will gladly bring Netanyahu as my guest.
2. Open a Hot New Nightclub In New York
The president can't seem to resist hot clubs and celebrities. He partied this week at Jay-Z and Beyonce's 40/40 club, where guests shelled out $40,000 to attend. Maybe jazz up the Israeli mission for a little shindig after the UN meetings. Invite Bar Refaeli. Definitely.
3. Tell him you're bringing Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. In 2008 he said he would meet with him.
4. Give the meeting a college sports theme
Offer to make it an NCAA March Madness brackets contest. Tell the president you have North Carolina going down in the first round to Yale. If that doesn't work, tell him you're working out a new college football playoff series.
5. Offer the meeting over a round of golf.
Obama played his 100th round of golf as president by the end of the spring. The only thing he does more is hold fundraisers. He held 100 of those in the first 180 days of 2012. Since you can't legally donate money, challenge him to golf at, say, $1,000 per?
Egypt is teetering toward radical extremism. Anti-American demonstrators are rioting in nuclear Pakistan. There are reports that Iran -- 70 times the size of Israel -- is now moving weapons through Iraq to Syria. And Iran is, by some reports, 90 percent of the way toward achieving nuclear weapon capability. On top of all that, Ahmadinejad continues to reiterate his enmity to Israel, in case anyone had forgotten it, calling the nation "an insult to humankind" just last month.
Whatever it takes, Bibi, get that meeting.
Bill O'Reilly is a Newsday columnist and a Republican political consultant struggling to hold onto his own name. He is no relation to Bill O'Reilly the Fox News commentator.
This is an updated version of the piece. An earlier version reported that President Obama was planning to meet with Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi.
