As Israel's incoming Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, yesterday opened formal talks with his potential coalition partners and heard intimations that several Arab states may strengthen ties with Israel because of his victory, speculation was mounting over the future of the outgoing Prime Minister, Mr Benjamin Netanyahu.
Half an hour after the polling stations closed last Monday night, and TV exit polls made clear that he was heading for a humiliating defeat, Mr Netanyahu pre-empted a barrage of criticism from his Likud colleagues by announcing his resignation as party chairman. Since then, he has stayed away from meetings at which his Likud colleagues - now temporarily led by Mr Ariel Sharon - have tried to analyse the reasons for his defeat and their failure; the Likud won only 19 Knesset seats, down from 32 in the 120-member house last time.
Though still formally prime minister, Mr Netanyahu has also failed to hold the usual weekly meetings with the heads of the army, the Mossad and the Shin Bet domestic security service, and it is not clear whether he intends to convene cabinet meetings over the next few weeks. Mr Barak has until the beginning of July to put together a coalition; until then, unless a domestic or international crisis erupts, Mr Netanyahu may be intending to let the country run on automatic pilot.
It has been rumoured, but not confirmed, that Mr Netanyahu is contemplating resigning his Knesset seat as well - perhaps even this week. He is said to have received lucrative offers of employment from at least two leading American Jewish businessmen, and a reported seven-figure offer from a US publisher for his memoirs. "Where are those publishers?" he quipped at a farewell party for his office staff on Sunday, ridiculing talk of a $1.5 million advance. "I'll give 10 per cent to anyone who can get me a deal like that."
Posters pasted up yesterday by Mr Netanyahu's supporters proclaimed, "Thank you Bibi, the people will miss you yet." And self-characterised friends of his have said this week that he has been talking of a comeback a few years down the road. "Don't write me off yet," Mr Netanyahu is said to have remarked to one such "friend". His successor, Mr Barak, meanwhile, is quickly discovering that unifying the disputatious political tribes of Israel is no easy mission. His coalition task force held talks yesterday with Meretz, the leftwing party which endorsed him as prime minister, and with the immigrant party Yisrael Ba'aliya, the Centre Party, and the anti-ultra-Orthodox Shinui, parties which endorsed neither Mr Barak nor Mr Netanyahu. Today, it will be the turn of the Likud and the ultra-Orthodox Shas.
Mr Barak's strategy is to present potential partners with a 10-point document outlining his planned policies, to hear how that sits with their thinking, and to build a coalition of like-minded, or at least mutually tolerant parties. But although the task is not hopeless, the obstacles are numerous. To take just two: Shinui does not want to sit together with Shas; the Likud under Mr Sharon would hardly accept the settlement freeze demanded by Meretz.
Still, there was some good news for Mr Barak yesterday - from the Arab world. Morocco's King Hassan, a trenchant critic of Mr Netanyahu's, is getting ready to invite the new prime minister to Rabat. Qatar and Oman, two of the Gulf principalities, are said to be planning to strengthen relations with Israel. And most importantly, President Hafez Assad of Syria has sent a message via a third party expressing a desire to resume peace negotiations.