Walid Jumblatt and Ehud Barak?

Haaretz forwards along, unquestioningly, a report published in Syrian mouthpiece Sham Press that Jumblatt is meeting with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak in Washington DC. Barak is in Washington to discuss Middle East security, and the Iranian nuclear threat. According to the Syrian report, Jumblatt will ask Barak to use his Washington contacts to push for regime change in Syria.

The reasons why the Syrian regime would fabricate such a meeting are pretty obvious. Less clear is why Haaretz, a respectable paper that is certainly aware of the Syrian propaganda machine, would repeat the rumor without independent confirmation. Shmuel Rosner, Haaretz's Washington correspondent whose byline appears over the story, always appeared to be a relatively sharp political observer to my eyes. And the shared anti-Syrian position of Jumblatt and Barak could provide some common ground for the two leaders. I don't discount the possibility that Rosner heard unconfirmed rumors of a Jumblatt-Barak meeting, and decided to get the story in Haaretz by "reporting" on the Sham Press article.