In a March 2 Wall Street Journal article, Middle East correspondent Charles Levinson reported that as first lady, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “sparked outrage after embracing Suha Arafat, wife of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, shortly after Mrs. Arafat accused Israel of using poison gas against Palestinians.” But Levinson, who was reporting on Clinton's upcoming visit to Israel, did not note that Clinton reportedly “condemned Mrs. Arafat hours later, after receiving, she said, an official translation of her remarks.”

As Media Matters for America has noted, articles in both The Boston Globe and The Washington Post have reported that Clinton embraced Suha Arafat after Arafat made her remarks without noting Clinton's reported condemnation of those remarks. Additionally, right-wing pundit Debbie Schlussel has repeatedly claimed that, during Clinton's 1999 trip to the West Bank, “there wasn't a peep from Hillary Clinton when Suha Arafat told her that Jews like me poison Palestinian water and air and cause cancer for them.”

In an October 6, 2000, article, The New York Times reported:

On the trip, Mrs. Clinton was photographed kissing the wife of Yasir Arafat, after Mrs. Arafat, speaking in Arabic, accused the Israeli government of employing toxic gas against Palestinian women and children. Mrs. Clinton condemned Mrs. Arafat hours later, after receiving, she said, an official translation of her remarks.

When Mrs. Clinton was asked by a Jewish Week questioner whether she would have done anything differently with the benefit of hindsight, she responded briskly. “I wouldn't have gone -- that's the first thing,” she said. Mrs. Clinton said the encounter, which some of her advisers view as the low point of her campaign, led to “a misimpression about my strong feelings and support of Israel.”

From the March 2 Wall Street Journal article:

On the home front, Mr. Obama's chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, also has ties to the region. He is the son of a former fighter in Israel's pre-statehood underground militia. That background may reassure American Jews, whose support Mr. Obama will need if he decides to press Israel to make painful concessions for peace, according to Morton Klein, president of the Zionist Organization of America, a pro-Israel lobbying group based in New York.

Mrs. Clinton herself brings a track record that could both reassure and cause concern among Israelis and Palestinians alike. As first lady, she sparked outrage after embracing Suha Arafat, wife of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, shortly after Mrs. Arafat accused Israel of using poison gas against Palestinians.

In the Senate, Mrs. Clinton won Israeli supporters with positions including speaking out against anti-Israel incitement in Palestinian schoolbooks and media, a favorite cause of the Israeli right.

Mr. Netanyahu and his aides have been careful in public comments not to say anything that might hurt relations with the Obama administration. However, in private conversations, they have expressed skepticism about some of President Obama's appointees, who haven't hesitated to take critical stances against Israel.