Mideast diplomatic dust-up over unpaid dinner tab?

[babylonsister]

Mideast diplomatic dust-up over unpaid dinner tab?

By Dion Nissenbaum | McClatchy Newspapers


JERUSALEM — It may be known as Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's last scandal. If it isn't settled soon, the brewing controversy also has the potential to become the first diplomatic dust-up between President Barack Obama and America's strongest Middle East ally.

At issue is an unpaid $320 bill for dinner with a White House advance team at a restaurant near Olmert's official residence.

For nine months, Restobar co-owner Abigail Elior said, she and her staff have been quietly trying to get the prime minister's office to pay the tab and avoid becoming Israel's highest-profile scofflaws.

Now they're taking their appeal public to ask: Who'll pay for the entrecote steak and apple pie?

"It's just outrageous," said Elior, 31. "This is our lives and our income, and nobody cares."

Faced with stonewalling from Olmert's office, the frustrated restaurant owners threatened Tuesday, mostly in jest, to demand payment from the White House.

"It's embarrassing for me to have to go to the White House," co-owner Shahar Levy told Israel's newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. "But for this amount of meat and alcohol, they need to pay me."

The prime minister's office said Tuesday that the issue came to light in December and that officials were working to pay the tab quickly.

It all began last May, when an Olmert aide called Restobar to ask whether the restaurant could take a last-minute booking for a meal with a White House advance team that was in town to prepare for then-President George W. Bush's second visit to Israel.

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http://www.mcclatchydc.com/251/story/62738.html

[MADem]

1. "This is our lives and our income, and nobody cares."

It's terribly rude not to pay them. I can't believe they've known since December and they're "working to pay the tab quickly." That's QUICKLY? Quickly is you find out, and you pay the same day.

What, did someone lose the key to the petty cash drawer?