Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu loves maps. Considering them a helpful tool to illustrate his view of global affairs, he often brings them along to public speeches, to briefings with the press and to hearings in the Knesset.
“May I reveal to the members of the press that there is a big map in my office, and it’s been made bigger, ” he said last week during a meeting with Paraguayan President Horacio Cartes in Jerusalem. “It used to be the Middle East. Now it encompasses a good chunk of the Eastern hemisphere.”
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The map of the world Netanyahu brandished Monday at the Knesset State Control Committee, where he defended his foreign policy record, offers some valuable insights into his view of Israel’s place among the family of nations. (A quarter-century ago, as he was rising to become the leader of the then-Likud opposition, Netanyahu published a book entitled, “A Place Among the Nations: Israel in the World.”)
The map, a copy of which was made available to The Times of Israel, is meant to highlight positive trends in Israel’s foreign relations. It divides the world’s countries into different categories: those with which Jerusalem has “recently developed/upgraded” relations are marked in red; states that entertain “good relations” with Israel are in blue; and “overtly hostile enemy states” are in black. With the rest of the world, in green, “Israel does not have special relations, ” according to the prime minister’s aides, who created the map especially for Monday’s Knesset session.
