The Moment

9|22|09: New York City

A Handshake is a greeting, an expression of trust, a mutual guarantee by two people that--at least in one hand--they carry no weapon. But it can also ensure a measure of distance and convey an articulation of reserve, as if its participants are thinking, Thus far and no further. A handshake is not a hug. There was little obvious warmth when Israel's Benjamin Netanyahu and the Palestinian Authority's Mahmoud Abbas met, under the stern gaze of Barack Obama, at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York City. The history of their nations is littered with too many incompatible dreams, too much heartache,...

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