In the last week of November, Israel was locked in a tense, politically charged set of negotiations with EU diplomats over a €1.5bn package of loans from Brussels. The talks were bound to be difficult: the Europeans had already stipulated that the money would go only to organisations that did not do business in Jewish settlements on occupied Arab land.

To some Israelis, the EU’s position – designed to make a point about the borders between Israel and a future Palestinian state – raised fears that the country was sliding towards the economic isolation South Africa felt in the final years of apartheid.

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, called an emergency cabinet meeting to find a way of breaking the stalemate to renew the terms for the loan programme, known as Horizon 2020. Within days, an agreement was reached: the EU would provide the money but none of it would benefit Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem or the Golan Heights.