The Israeli Prime Minister is trying to garner opposition to the Hamas-Fatah power-sharing pact As the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu takes his campaign against a unity pact between the two main Palestinian factions to Europe he faces major policy challenges, says the BBC's Kevin Connolly in Jerusalem.
There is a satirical TV show in Israel which portrays Benjamin Netanyahu as an operatic baritone, stretching and bending every note he sings in a desperate effort to play for time as the chorus plagues him with awkward questions. What is to be done about the Palestinians and their plans to ask the UN to recognise their statehood in September they ask; what will the Israeli prime minister say in the speech to Congress in which he will have to ensure that the US at least remains bound to Israel in the face of a rising tide of support for the Palestinians.
In the programme - Wonderful Country or Eretz Nehedorot - the Netanyahu character responds by suggesting he'll throw in the odd low note, interspersed with high notes. By way of variation he suggests he might thump the podium for emphasis.
The impression is that Mr Netanyahu is at best a tactician rather than a strategist - a man whose skills run more to artfully creating an impression of diplomatic activity rather than taking history by the scruff of the neck.
Unusual times In normal times when Israel was doing well economically in a Middle East which was marooned in a kind of ice age of autocracy the strategy worked perfectly well for Mr Netanyahu (if not for the Palestinians). Trouble is, these are not normal times in the Middle East.
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End Quote David Horowitz Editor of the Jerusalem PostOur existence depends on us being smart and here, like everyone else, we were taken by surprise”
Half-completed revolutions in Egypt and Tunisia still offer the hope of a kind of Arab Spring even as the Assad regime in Syria follows the pattern of the Gadaffi administration in Libya - dragging whole countries into states of murderous chaos in an attempt to cling to power. The pressure for change is felt in Yemen too, and in Bahrain.
All around Israel fundamental things are changing and changing fast. The editor of the Jerusalem Post, David Horowitz put it like this: "We are on the western edge of a largely hostile landmass so when drastic and dramatic things happen in our region and our intelligence, security and political leaders didn't tell us we're disturbed."
"Our existence depends on us being smart and here, like everyone else, we were taken by surprise."Continued
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