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Barak coming to DC with Netanyahu

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has just been added to Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s trip to the United States for the upcoming AIPAC conference, an insider tells The Cable. Barak will be included in all of Netanyahu’s meetings with senior administration officials, our source confirms. His addition to the trip is sure to fuel speculation ...

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has just been added to Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu’s trip to the United States for the upcoming AIPAC conference, an insider tells The Cable. Barak will be included in all of Netanyahu’s meetings with senior administration officials, our source confirms. His addition to the trip is sure to fuel speculation that the Netanyahu government is trying to repair ties to the Obama team by reestablishing trust that was lost last week.

Barak, who was prime minister from 1999 to 2001, was a crucial player in the Camp David Summit in 2000. He hails from the left-leaning Labor Party, which is a minority member of Netanyahu’s coalition. The recent U.S.-Israeli dispute began with an announcement of new settlements by a ministry led by the right-leaning Shas party.

Still no word whether Netanyahu (and Barak) will get face time with President Obama, but meetings with Vice President Joseph Biden are expected, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is still waiting for a response to her list of demands to Netanyahu.

Barak will attend the AIPAC gala event Monday night, which Netanyahu will address. Hillary will speak Monday morning.

Josh Rogin covers national security and foreign policy and writes the daily Web column The Cable. His column appears bi-weekly in the print edition of The Washington Post. He can be reached for comments or tips at josh.rogin@foreignpolicy.com.

Previously, Josh covered defense and foreign policy as a staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, writing extensively on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantánamo Bay, U.S.-Asia relations, defense budgeting and appropriations, and the defense lobbying and contracting industries. Prior to that, he covered military modernization, cyber warfare, space, and missile defense for Federal Computer Week Magazine. He has also served as Pentagon Staff Reporter for the Asahi Shimbun, Japan's leading daily newspaper, in its Washington, D.C., bureau, where he reported on U.S.-Japan relations, Chinese military modernization, the North Korean nuclear crisis, and more.

A graduate of George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs, Josh lived in Yokohama, Japan, and studied at Tokyo's Sophia University. He speaks conversational Japanese and has reported from the region. He has also worked at the House International Relations Committee, the Embassy of Japan, and the Brookings Institution.

Josh's reporting has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, C-Span, CBS, ABC, NPR, WTOP, and several other outlets. He was a 2008-2009 National Press Foundation's Paul Miller Washington Reporting Fellow, 2009 military reporting fellow with the Knight Center for Specialized Journalism and the 2011 recipient of the InterAction Award for Excellence in International Reporting. He hails from Philadelphia and lives in Washington, D.C. Twitter: @joshrogin

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