Netanyahu’s gift to Obama: Twain, of course

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will give President Obama a copy of Mark Twain’s “Pleasure Excursion to the Holy Land” when they meet today, according to Haaretz.

The essay is part of Twain’s book “The Innocents Abroad.”

Here is Haaretz’s description of the work:

In his travel memoir, Twain describes a 1867 trip to the Land of Israel, which he finds a backward and desolate place devoid of culture or law. “Renowned Jerusalem itself, the stateliest name in history, has lost all its ancient grandeur, and is become a pauper village,” he states, calling it a country where prosperity had died out, a place of lost splendor and beauty where joy has turned to sorrow, and where silence and death prevail in its holy places.

You can read the work here (Via Jake Tapper).

jeremy.jacobs@digital-stage.thehill.com