Tale of two maps: Israel.(Secretary of State Madeleine Albright is pressing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for plans to withdraw from the West Bank, but Netanyahu is also receiving pressure from his own party members to avoid withdrawal)(Brief Article)

Economist (US), The, December, 1997

JERUSALEM

"DEMONSTRATE outside the American embassy," was Binyamin Netanyahu's advice this week to the members of the hardline National Religious Party who had told the prime minister they were demonstrating against him "in order to strengthen him". Mr Netanyahu, summoned to attend America's secretary of state, Madeleine Albright, in Paris on December 18th with detailed plans for a partial Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, has been anxious to impress the Americans with the tightness of his domestic political constraints. To that extent, the display of religious-right pressure was all to the good.

But there can be too much of a good thing. Mr Netanyahu apparently forgot his tactical calculations when, in a late-night cabinet meeting on December 16th,...

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