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Israeli cabinets are notoriously fractious affairs, and it is normal for ministers to spend more time fighting and backbiting than conducting government business. So it is something of a miracle that the current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his defence minister, Ehud Barak, appear to have created a uniquely harmonious relationship.

According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, these two men – drawn from opposite ends of the political spectrum – are so close that they talk every day and at the end of the week they sit down together in private for two to three hours. They are a “joint leadership axis”– a rare occurrence in a country where the prime minister of the day usually views his defence minister as a greater threat than all the...