Netanyahu

It is hard to overstate the significance of Israel’s surgical strikes against Syrian military positions over the weekend. The raids targeted missiles bound for Hezbollah in Lebanon while also destroying battery launchers and other delivery systems. Beyond the obvious damage this inflicted on Syrian military capabilities, its real significance lies in the broader political objectives it achieved. Benjamin Netanyahu made a strategic miscalculation last November when he launched Operation Pillar of Defence against Hamas operatives in Gaza. He failed to inflict any meaningful damage on the group while the Hamas administration secured a number of victories, not least hitting Tel Aviv.

At the (rejuvenated) New Republic, Ben Birnbaum has a comprehensive and comprehensively-depressing survey of the last-gasp prospects for a two-state solution to the Middle East 'peace process'. If the two-state solution (TSS) is not yet on life-support it is hardly a picture of health. The prognosis is not good and time is running out. According to Birnbaum, Mahmoud Abbas and Bibi Netanyahu are, in their different ways, the last remaining men who could make it work. Yet neither man, as he also demonstrates, has much room for manoeuver.

Today's Israeli election does not, it is fair to say, take place in at a moment of supreme hope in the Middle East. Quite the contrary. This is an election whose result seems liable to depress most foreign observers. Bibi Netanyahu is no-one's idea of a moderate but the fact remains that, presuming he is returned for a third term as Prime Minister, he may be one of the more left-wing members of the new Israeli government. Indeed, Netanyahu is liable to be one of the more liberal members returned on the Likud list. Daniel Levy has a very useful primer on the dispiriting 'facts on the ground'. As Levy says: The next coalition will likely find it even harder to pretend to the world that a 2009 Netanyahu speech in which the phrase "two states" was uttered is a genuine policy commitment.

After a hiatus, the Middle East Peace Process is about to return to the international stage. The Palestinians are pushing at the UN for recognition. Nobody knows yet what they will actually ask for: full statehood or just upgrading their UN status to "non-member". But, whatever the language of the resolution, the issue will be contentious. By some estimates, 126 states are poised to back the Palestinian request, including France, India, Brazil, Spain. The US will not support a Palestinian move, nor is Germany likely to. Britain remains undecided, hoping to help the Palestinians draft a resolution that other Europeans can sign up to. It’s not clear what Britain and European governments should do.

Last summer, I spoke to Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, about the Mavi Marmara row. Davatoglu was not only animated, but clear on what he thought. Unless Israel apologised, he said, the “relationship would change”. Now, Turkey has reacted to the publication of a UN report (which insists that Israel's naval blockade of Gaza was legal but that Israeli soldiers used unreasonable force) by following through on some of Davutoglu's threats. Many military agreements between Turkey and Israel have been suspended and the Israeli ambassador has been expelled. The Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Erdogan, has also warned that relations will disintegrate further unless Israel offers an apology, pays compensation and removes the embargo against the Gaza Strip.

Israeli politicians have been worrying that the Palestinians would join the protests sweeping the Middle East. So far, this has not happened. But now the Israeli leadership is facing something it probably never expected: an Israeli Spring.   Tens of thousands of Israelis took to the streets last weekend to protest against the high cost of living and demand that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu conduct extensive economic reforms. Over 150,000 people are thought to have demonstrated in Tel Aviv, Haifa, Jerusalem, Beersheba and six other cities in left-wing protests against housing policy, but which seem to be morphing into a broader political movement.