By now it is something of an Israeli ritual. As an election looms, Binyamin Netanyahu digs deep for ways to scare or thrill his hawkish supporters. He says unkind things about Israel's Arab minority. He warns of voter fraud. He invites nervous conservatives to imagine a cabinet minister named Ahmed. On September 10th he offered a carrot: if re-elected, Mr Netanyahu said, he would annex the occupied Jordan Valley in the West Bank. Such a move-indeed, any discussion of it even—would be reviled abroad, including by Israel's allies. But foreign criticism worries him far less than the threat of defeat at home.
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