The worsening war in Lebanon is the latest in a series of blows to the leadership of the Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, who took office last summer promising a new era of peacemaking and effective government, but whose policy initiatives are imploding one after another.
Peace negotiations with Syria have broken down, and there is thus no immediate prospect of negotiating the deal Mr Barak desperately wanted for the orderly withdrawal of Israeli troops from Lebanon.
On the Palestinian front, Mr Barak set a February 13th deadline for reaching the outline of a permanent peace deal, but that timetable is proving impossible to meet.
The President of the Palestinian Authority, Mr Yasser Arafat, stalked away from a summit with Mr Barak last week, accusing the Israelis of attempting to dictate rather than negotiate terms.
On the domestic front, Mr Barak now faces hugely embarrassing police questioning in an investigation of suspected illegalities in his election campaign funding.
Furthermore, having gambled on a rapid peace process, he has neglected much of the internal Israeli agenda and failed to intervene in a series of recent strikes by teachers, handicapped Israelis, civil servants and others, infuriating large sectors of the electorate.
His multi-party coalition is not on the verge of collapse. But, as Mr Barak well knows, this is far more a consequence of the chaos in the opposition Likud camp, rather than proof of satisfaction with his leadership.
Issam Hamza reports from Damascus:
Syria said yesterday that Israel's military escalation in Lebanon was aimed at killing the already stalled Syrian-Israeli peace negotiations.
Syria's Foreign Minister, Mr Farouq al-Shara, was quoted by a government official as saying: "The serious escalation in Lebanon is aimed at harming civilians and killing the peace process which is already stalled due to Israeli obstinacy."
Damascus officials said Syria wanted a clear Israeli commitment to withdraw from the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in the 1967 war, before it agrees to resume negotiations.