Surprisingly enough, Netanyahu did not get a pat on his back from British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Both reiterated the need for a freeze on settlement construction, and the indispensability of furthering the peace process. Similarly, a lecture from US peace envoy for the region, George Mitchell, must have certainly put Netanyahu in a defensive mood. And then came the snub from the German chancellor, who brushed aside the Israeli leader’s comparison of Iranian nuclear plan to the Holocaust. Last but not the least, a telephone call from French President Nicholas Sarkozy, earlier, underlined the urgency of a vigorous reopening of the peace process.
