President Barack Obama’s high-profile, 48-hour visit to Israel and the Palestinian Authority last week appeared to end on a low-key note.

Four weeks ago, when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan equated Zionism with fascism and called it a crime against humanity at a conference in Vienna, it seemed that relations between Israel and Turkey had reached their lowest ebb.

But without meaning to, Mr Erdogan had created an opening for a new American initiative to bring the two nations back together.

As the first Argentine Pope, Francis I comes from a country where there are 230,000 Jews in a country of 37 million, of whom 80 per cent are Catholic.

The new Pope is likely to follow in the footsteps of John Paul II and Benedict XVI. He was appointed cardinal by John Paul II in 2001 and is a Latin American with Italian roots, who studied in Germany. His spoken English is good.

This week’s goings on at the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) mark yet another dismal episode in a seemingly endless series. What is, to a significant extent, a rogues’ gallery of murderous and corrupt regimes, congregated to “discuss” a report excoriating Israel and demanding an immediate withdrawal from the West Bank.

At the exact moment that US President Barack Obama landed in Israel on Wednesday, both Palestinians and Israelis announced that they were establishing new outposts.

Late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez developed a close political and strategic relationship with Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad based on a deep anti-Americanism, which led to an “Axis of Unity” against the US.