Thomas Friedman enjoys breakfast with Lebanese Ambassador to the United Nations Nawaf Salam.

The main dining room of New York’s Loews Regency hotel located on the corner of 61st Street and Park Avenue is well know as the favorite breakfast venue of the rich and influential.

Last Friday, an Algemeiner reader captured this photo and video of beleaguered New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman with Lebanese Ambassador to the United Nations Nawaf Salam breakfasting at the hot spot.

Salam, who has held his position since 2007 is well know for his key role in forwarding the Unilateral Deceleration of Palestinian Arab Statehood at the United Nations, a move that was vigorously opposed by the United States.

Anne Bayefsky, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute and editor of Eye on the UN, commented on Salam’s position as a representative of the Hezbollah dominated Lebanese government, saying, “He is essentially Hezbollah’s representative in the United Nations.” The group, listed as a terror organization by the United States, has dominated Lebanese politics since 2009.

Our eyewitness tells us that their body language seemed friendly and jovial.

The meeting came just three days following the publication of Friedman’s now infamous December 13th column where he wrote, “I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.”

Friedman subsequently expressed regret over the statement in an interview with the Jewish Week saying, “In retrospect I probably should have used a more precise term like ‘engineered’ by the Israel lobby — a term that does not suggest grand conspiracy theories that I don’t subscribe to.” “It would have helped people focus on my argument, which I stand by 100 percent,” he concluded.

An Israeli government insider who did not wish to be named told the Algemeiner that there is suspicion among some in the government that the recent heightened pitch of Friedman’s attacks on the Jewish state in his columns are the product of undue Arab influence.