While Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ehud Barak, is delighting his Arab neighbours with promises to move forward rapidly towards regional peace, he is taking a most unexpected battering at home.
Mr Barak, who only took office a week ago, last night held his third summit with an Arab neighbour since then - dining with King Abdullah of Jordan.
Last Friday, he met President Mubarak in Egypt, and on Sunday he had talks with the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat - winning warm public endorsements from both of them for his professed determination to revive Middle East peace hopes.
Even more dramatically, Mr Barak is hearing a series of encouraging noises from Syria, long Israel's most hostile neighbour, with the EU's regional envoy, Mr Miguel Moratinos, yesterday reporting from Damascus that the Syrian Foreign Minister, Mr Farouq a-Sharaa, is now anticipating an imminent resumption of stalled Israeli-Syrian peace talks.
In what would be an unmistakable indication of warming relations, moreover, it is being claimed that Syria is prepared to transfer, for reburial in Israel, the body of Eli Cohen, an Israeli spy who penetrated high into the Damascus power structure before being exposed and publicly executed in 1965.
Cohen's widow, Nadia, said yesterday that President Hafez Assad of Syria had responded positively, via third parties, to a recent message she sent him recently on the issue.
However, in stark contrast to these upbeat responses, all is far from rosy for Mr Barak on the domestic front.
His 75-strong coalition, sworn in only last Tuesday, could soon be down to 69, if Mr Natan Sharansky leads his Yisrael Ba'aliya immigrant party into opposition. Two of Mr Sharansky's six-strong faction have defected and he blames some of Mr Barak's colleagues for fomenting the split.
The departure would not cripple the coalition, but it would certainly embarrass the Prime Minister.
Embarrassment is already doled out by Mr Barak's One Israel party. Angered by some of his ministerial appointments, these supposedly most loyal of his colleagues last week outvoted Mr Barak's choice for Knesset speaker. Yesterday, they snubbed him again, ditching his choice for chair of a minor Knesset committee, and plumping instead for an Arab Knesset member, Mr Salah Tarif.
It is being suggested this week that Mr Barak might raise the idea of appointing Ms Leah Rabin, widow of the late prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, as Israel's ambassador to the United Nations. The way things stand now, if she wants the job, Mr Barak's endorsement might be the last thing she needs.
Mr Barak's most numerous, and vociferous, critics, however, are Israel's women. Before his election victory, he promised to appoint at least three women ministers. In the event, he has named only one.
Two hundred women protested outside his first cabinet meeting on Sunday. On Monday, he met a delegation of women's leaders, and left them fuming when he acknowledged that he had broken a pledge but gave no clear commitment to correct himself.