Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu paid an unannounced visit to the 9/11 memorial Thursday night with Mayor Bloomberg to touch the names of the four Israeli citizens killed in the terrorist attack.
He just said, 'This is unbelievable, this is so moving,'" the mayor reported today on his weekly WOR radio show, where he disclosed the visit.
Aides said the pair spent a half hour to 45 minutes together amid extremely tight security.
Bloomberg said Netanyahu, who was accompanied by his wife, went at an hour when the memorial is especially touching.
It's particularly moving at night, the way the names are done. They're carved right through the steel," the mayor recalled. "The light shines up right through the names. The panels are heated for winter so you won't get stuck to them and cooled in the summer so you won't burn yourself when you touch them."
Michael Arad, the architect of the memorial, has Israeli roots and, according to Bloomberg, "used to go to Netanyahu's house for dinner."
Bloomberg is headed to Israel next month for the dedication of a new ambulance facility named in honor of his father.
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