[caption id="attachment_318721" align="aligncenter" width="492" caption="The affairs of the workers of Eretz Israel should be in the hands of the workers of Eretz Israel, 1935."][/caption]

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So too with the America's drone industry. The Israeli influence is not visible but it is real, documented and extremely relevant to the future of drones in America. If you want to know how drones may change American airspace in coming years, just look to Israel, where the unmanned aerial vehicle market is thriving and drones are considered a reliable instrument of "homeland security.”

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Only days after announcing the surprise dissolution of his government and early elections, on Tuesday Netanyahu presented his compatriots with a second shocker: He cancelled elections and announced a strengthened parliamentary coalition, bolstered by unification with the opposition Kadima party.

This new union means Netanyahu will control more than 90 seats in Israel’s 120-seat parliament, known as the Knesset. The new majority is unprecedented in modern times. Former army chief of staff and Kadima’s newly-elected leader, Shaul Mofaz, will join as deputy prime minister. The center-right Kadima party adds heft to Netanyahu's mandate at a time of urgently polemical debate in Israel over Iran's nuclear program.

Netanyahu’s political jockeying provoked an immediate and strong reaction in Israel.

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Following the conclusion of last week's talks between Iran and Western powers, for instance, Netanyahu publicly complained that the five-week gap between each summit amounted to no more than "a freebie" for Iran to continue developing its nuclear capacity unimpeded.

A growing cadre of Israeli political analysts view Netanyahu's posturing on Iran as part of a long-term pre-electoral strategy — he faces mounting threats against the stability of his coalition.

Alon Liel, a 30-year veteran of the country’s foreign ministry, where he once served as director general, told GlobalPost he believes the Iranian issue is expedient for Netanyahu both internationally and domestically. Abroad, he is vulnerable to accusations that he is not moving toward peace talks with the Palestinians. Internally, he needs to shore up his right flank ahead of elections.

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The Netanyahu government, more so than its predecessors, confuses sovereignty over Israeli territory with sovereignty over the West Bank and Gaza Strip – which is what inevitably sets off the protests, causing Israel to freak out and sooner or later commit some act or acts that most of the world finds appalling. It’s a vicious circle; no matter how much security Israel’s military, political and economic power provide, the occupation does not let this country rest. The events of Sunday were a great example.

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Especially in a country with so much Jewish blood on its hands, this is – or was – a question that no Good German should ask in public. It was even more verboten when asked by someone who had belatedly admitted that as a teenager he had served, however briefly, in the Nazi paramilitary unit, the Waffen SS. But the 84-year-old Grass dared to break the taboo. He spoke out and said “What Must Be Said.”

Yet why do I hesitate to name
that other land in which
for years—although kept secret—
a growing nuclear power has existed
beyond supervision or verification,
subject to no inspection of any kind?

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“Grass’s poems fan the flames of hatred against Israel and the Israeli people, thus promoting the idea he was part of when he donned an SS uniform,” said Israel's interior minister, Eli Yishai, according to the New York Times, apparently referring to the writer's adolescence with the Hitler Youth, an admission Grass made in 2006.

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This powerful faction thought it had boosted its power even further when Asher Dan Grunis was appointed chief justice of the Supreme Court.

But so far, that hasn’t been the case. The court, breaking from the will of the right, ruled late last month that a small group of Jewish settlers must abandon their remote West Bank outpost.

The decision to evacuate the indisputably illegal Migron settlement, where about 50 families have installed caravans on Palestinian-owned land outside of Ramallah, did not initially seem significant. It was essentially a restatement of an order issued by the same Supreme Court last August, which demanded that Israelis leave Migron by March.

But instead of complying with the renewed demand, several weeks ago the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu proposed a deal — known as the Begin Compromise. It stated that in three-and-a-half years, the settlers of Migron would relocate to a nearby hilltop.

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Isaac was her brother. They had parted ways four decades earlier, as the ancient Jewish community of Alexandria, Egypt, broke under the strain of economic depression, Arab nationalism, and world war. My grandmother’s family were Sephardic Jews. They took their name, Albel-das, from a Spanish town cleansed of Jews five hundred years ago. From Spain, her ancestors crossed the Mediterranean. Her father hailed from Izmir in what is now Turkey, her mother from the Isle of Rhodes in what is now Greece.

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But by alienating Obama, mainly with that Holocaust horror show he put on at the AIPAC conference, Netanyahu has probably damaged his ability to go to war against the Islamic republic. The administration doesn’t trust him, doesn’t like him, doesn’t agree with him and doesn’t support him on a war that the president described publicly and pointedly as one that could cost American lives.

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Furthermore, “Footnote” has two of the best performances I’ve seen in world cinema over the past year: One from Shlomo Bar Aba (apparently best known in Israel as a stand-up comic and stage actor), playing the aging, bitter philologist Eliezer Shkolnik, and the other from Lior Ashkenazi, one of the country’s best known movie stars, as his son and rival, Uriel. Both men teach at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, but all is not well between them. In the opening scene, as Uriel thanks his father in a loquacious speech accepting his nomination to a prestigious academy, Eliezer can barely listen. He sits, hunched over and frowning, as if suffering from gout, headache and intestinal cramps all at the same time.

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Obama faced a very delicate task this week. Netanyahu came to town to address the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s big conference. This is Washington’s annual pro-Israel orgy, in which politicians from both parties vie with each other to declare their undying fealty to a tiny foreign country. Sitting out this bizarre ritual is not an option. As the New York Times reported, AIPAC delegates from all 50 states scheduled 530 meetings with members of Congress: Only five congressional offices did not take meetings, and two of those were vacant.

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AIPAC and the rest of the pro-Israel lobby remain influential despite the extraordinary shift in public opinion and popular discourse over the last several years that has put the lobby on the defensive everywhere but Congress.  Obama’s AIPAC speech reflected that influence and the perceived need of mainstream politicians to adhere to its demands, especially during the pressures of an election cycle. It would give, he and his advisers hope, a powerful boost to his campaign.

But on the critical question of Iran, his speech also highlighted the small but significant divide that continues to split U.S. from Israeli policy.  Obama offered a rhetorical embrace, but a much less-than-desired military promise to Israel on Iran, while delivering a slap in the face to human rights, international law, and any U.S. responsibility for ending support for Israel’s anti-Palestinian occupation and apartheid policies.

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At home, however, Netanyahu is not so strong, not as a prospective wartime prime minister, at any rate. Having no formidable rival, he is secure in office, but his public image, more and more, is that of an indecisive, deceitful, endlessly suspicious leader who’s under the sway of his wife, Sara. In a series of scandals in the prime minister’s office, the last one surfacing just before he left for Washington, he comes off like a weaker version of Richard Nixon.

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The matter was at the root of wry commentary accompanying a flurry of visits not seen in years.

In the past few weeks, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey and National Security Advisor Tom Donilon have all held high level meetings in Jerusalem. Barak is scheduled to meet with Panetta and with Vice President Joe Biden. Peres will meet with President Barack Obama, as will Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who will fly to Washington for a much anticipated meeting on March 5.

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A casual observer would probably say Netanyahu. He’s the Likud hard-liner, the settlement-builder, the one who’s always comparing Iran to the Nazis; Barak is the peacemaker from Camp David, the good friend of Bill and Hillary. Barak is an honorary Democrat; Netanyahu is the Republicans’ fantasy pick for president.

While all this seems true, it doesn’t necessarily tell you which of them is more determined to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities, and Ha’aretz is reporting (here and here) that U.S. officials say Barak is the one. As National Security Advisor Thomas Donilon and National Intelligence Agency chief James Clapper arrived in Jerusalem this week to press the case against an Israeli attack, Ha’aretz reported:

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An updated list of talking points distributed by the national advocacy desk in the Prime Minister’s Office  sought to connect the wave of terror with the international community’s efforts at tightening sanctions on Iran, and also to prepare the ground for a military option to stop Iran’s nuclear program.

According to Yediot, the new talking points read: “Iran and Hizbullah are behind these terror attempts. If this is what Iran is doing now, imagine what it will do if its nuclear arms project reaches the goal.” The tabloid's story was headlined “Iran’s long arm,” and the subhead read, “Israel to the world: ‘Terror acts show nuclear Iran cannot be allowed.'" The story’s ominous tone meshed perfectly with the talking points.

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