(Photo Credit:Wikimedia Commons)
By Aaron Pomerantz and Yuval Weiss
Last Updated 10/30/2015 at 4:30 PM
Tel Aviv, Dizengoff Center: In a move described by State Department Spokesperson Marie Harf as “unhelpful” and “not contributing to a constructive dialogue” Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu took United States Secretary of State John Kerry to Tel Aviv’s Dizengoff Center Mall this morning and left him at the Food Court on the third floor near the cinema. The visit to Dizengoff Center, slated as a “fact-finding trip” by Mr. Netanyahu’s staff, was cut short when Netanyahu informed Kerry that he “really needed to use the bathroom” and quickly exited the premises via a previously unknown exit near the Holmes Gym on the ground floor. A confused John Kerry waited approximately 30 minutes before setting out on his own to try to find his way out of the sprawling shopping center long known as difficult to comprehend even by native Israelis. The Daily Freier’s “City Beat” reporter was able to observe Mr. Kerry’s navigation efforts throughout the mall.
Upon realizing that Netanyahu had no intention of coming back, Mr. Kerry set out toward what he thought was an exit to King George Street, only to find himself turned around and in the middle of a room of vendors selling homemade traditional foods. Mr. Kerry took the time to recount some of his experiences as a Lieutenant in the Mekong Delta during Vietnam to a bewildered Druze woman selling flat breads with labaneh cheese. Mr. Kerry then set out again, trying to reach the Dizengoff Street pedestrian overpass that connects the two wings of the mall, and perhaps find an exit near the parking garage at the corner of Dizengoff and King George. Unfortunately, Kerry took a turn up a ramp that led to a bunch of semi empty shops. Again, Kerry displayed his diplomatic acumen as he told the woman applying Dead Sea mud to his face and neck that Putin’s actions in Syria would only hurt Russia in the long run and that Putin really needed to “get with the program and find some sort of consensus”. As Mr. Kerry set out again in search of an exit, the Daily Freier looked over the railing toward the second floor to see a dozen hurried men and women wearing khaki pants, bulging tan vests and earpieces fanning out and asking random passerby questions while gesturing frantically. At this point Mr. Kerry reached a tanning salon whose genial owner listened to Kerry’s recollections about appearing once on an episode of “Cheers” back in the early 1990’s. As the shops began to close this afternoon in preparation for Shabbat, a desperate Secret Service agent asked the Daily Freier if we had seen “a tall older white guy with a patrician manner and a long face.” and we informed them that we thought he might be with our friend Zachary near the store that sells Pop Tarts.