Oh, Netanyahu...

You've been a busy boy.

Monday, the current Prime Minister of Israel met with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to discuss the peace process in Israel/Palestine... Interesting. It seems like Netanyahu wants Egypt's help with a new crack at peace in the holy land (meant semi-sarcastically, trust me).

Thursday, he made a surprise trip to Jordan to meet with King Abdullah II:

Mark Regev, a spokesman for Mr. Netanyahu, said that the Israeli prime minister and the Jordanian monarch discussed bilateral issues and the peace process with the Palestinians. On the subject of Palestinian statehood, Mr. Regev said only that “the Prime Minister expressed his view that he is committed to moving forward and is committed to tangible steps that will benefit people on the ground.”

A statement issued by the royal palace after the meeting and quoted by news organizations said that the king had also asked Mr. Netanyahu to accept the Arab peace initiative, which offers Israel normal ties with the Arab world in return for a full withdrawal to its pre-1967 boundaries and a solution for the Palestinian refugees of 1948.

If that wasn't enough for the day, Netanyahu met with Pope Benedict XVI to ask for a denunciation of Iran from the Catholic Church.

In a closed 15-minute meeting in Nazareth, the northern Israeli city where tradition says Jesus lived, the pope and Mr. Netanyahu discussed “how to advance the terms of the peace process,” Father Lombardi said.

Mr. Netanyahu said he and the pope had discussed “the historic process of reconciliation between Christianity and Judaism.”

Father Lombardi said they had also discussed the continuing negotiations between the Vatican and the State of Israel over the Roman Catholic Church’s legal and taxation status in Israel.

Why is there a need to discuss the reconciliation between Christianity and Judaism? I guess I'm not important enough to say, but if there is a reason, it must be to try and figure out a way to bring about the same sort of phenomenon with the other monotheistic faith, Islam.

Throughout his visit to Jordan and Israel, Benedict has been calling attention to the plight of Christians in the region, whose numbers have been declining.

Unfortunately, Christians end up being grouped with Muslims as a minority in Israel. These same people who have experienced "reconciliation" with Judaism are forced into the most terrible parts of Israel/Palestine and are even made to use roads of a lesser quality because of their 'religious and ethnic inferiority.'

This upcoming Monday, Netanyahu visits DC in order to meet with President Obama. This is a major part of the Obama administration's stance on the conflict in the holy land - that there should be a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine:

The Obama administration has fired its own warning shots. It asked Congress to make minor changes in a bill to allow aid to flow to a Palestinian unity government that would include members backed by Hamas — a step away from a blanket refusal to deal with Hamas, which it labels a terrorist organization.

The changes ruffled lawmakers in Congress, who tweaked the wording to make it more restrictive. But the episode rattled Israeli officials, who recently waged a fierce military campaign against Hamas in Gaza to stem its rocket attacks on southern Israeli towns.

Adding to Israel’s qualms, a senior State Department official, Rose Gottemoeller, said at a recent conference in New York that the United States favored having Israel sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which would require it to declare and give up its nuclear arsenal.

We will see how well the talks go, but with the tension regarding Iran, it may be a trickier situation than the optimistic one many hope for. Netanyahu says, though, that Israel will not strike against Iran without Washington's approval. Let's hope they don't get it.