MR Benjamin Netanyahu's new hardline Israeli government got off to a deeply embarrassing start yesterday, sworn into office while riven with internal disagreements and heavily criticised by much of the Arab world.
Three weeks after narrowly winning general elections, Mr Netanyahu and his right wing Likud bloc successfully sealed coalition agreements with five other parties - three Orthodox, one centrist and one preoccupied with immigrant rights - to ensure a solid parliamentary majority for the government, which won approval by 62 votes to 50 in the 120 member Knesset.
But the new Prime Minister was less successful in finalising his ministerial appointments. For no obvious reason, Mr Netanyahu failed to allocate a frontline cabinet post to Mr Ariel Sharon, the hawkish former defence minister who played a key role in engineering the election victory. In a show of solidarity with his overlooked colleague, Mr David Levy, intended for the Foreign Ministry, temporarily declined to accept the post.
And thus, humiliatingly, when Mr Netanyahu read out the roll call of his ministers in the Knesset, he could name neither Mr Sharon nor Mr Levy, and had to leave the chamber later to continue cabinet negotiations. Only late last night could he officially confirm Mr Levy as foreign minister and announce that he had manufactured a new composite portfolio - grandly titled the Ministry of National Infrastructure - to accommodate Mr Sharon.
What was bizarre about this mini crisis was that it was entirely self created. Mr Netanyahu had several more weeks under Israeli law to finalise his government. As the leading Israeli columnist, Nahum Barnea, wrote yesterday, the affair pointed to a rather worrying flaw in the new Prime Minister's make up: "The inability to make a decision."
While his leadership ability remains unproved, Mr Netanyahu gave another of his impressive but vague speeches to introduce his new government.
The Arab world, however, has looked beyond the conciliatory generalities to the new government's published guidelines, which rule out Palestinian statehood and the relinquishing of the Golan Heights, and pledge support for Jewish settlements.
Mr Abu Mazen, Mr Yasser Arafat's deputy, called the guidelines "stubborn and uncompromising". Mr Abu Ala, another senior Palestinian peace negotiator, warned ominously that the Palestinians had "other options" to further their cause if Israel under Mr Netanyahu reneged on the peace process.
The Syrian daily, Tishreen, observed that if the new government was to follow its guidelines, it would be "putting an end to the peace process
The defeated Israeli Labour leader, Mr Shimon Peres, in his first speech as opposition leader, mocked Mr Netanyahu's "beautiful words and rhetoric", and reminded him of what he said was the inescapable need to trade captured land for comprehensive peace. It was absurd to offer the Palestinians self rule, said Mr Peres, when they had already gained as much under the outgoing government.