Background noise

It is said that Jordanian authorities are planning to release a high-profile prisoner with ISIS affiliations to secure the release of their captured pilot and the surviving Japanese hostage, in the wake of the first hostage being executed after Tokyo refused to pay a $200m ransom.  Though Prime minister Shinzo Abe was quite right not to bolster the terror-making capabilities of ISIS at the risk of two of his country's citizens, I can't help feel that, in the eyes of ISIS, Japan went from a neutral, far-away nation to a co-belligerent with the perceived enemies of ISIS when the prime minister lead the largest ever trade delegation to Israel.  That $200m ransom was exactly the same amount Shinzo Abe had pledged recently to give to countries fighting ISIS.  It is noteworthy that the nationals of the Empire of Nippon had not run into trouble in the Middle East before.  Like Jordan's cancellation of air combat missions ostensibly to safeguard their imprisoned pilot but possibly more in reaction to American and Israeli pressure on the Security Council members not to bring Palestinian statehood to a vote in the United Nations' highest law-making chamber, it may be apposite to scan the background noise.
This is not to say Japan can't trade with Israel forfending a reaction from ISIS, a death cult of nihilistic thugs, but it could have done so with less fanfare.  This was only Japan's fault in part because the visit formed another salvo in the incredibly divisive Benjamin Netanyahu's power-play with Europe.  In the wake of several European parliaments recognising in principle (and Sweden in fact) the existence of Palestinian statehood in the face of repeated stonewalling (literal and metaphorical) from Tel-Aviv in the peace process, the irascible Israel prime minister was boasting, 'look, we don't need you.  We have other friends and we'll trade with them'.  Son of a fanatical Zionist and brother of a posthumous national hero, Netanyahu comes across with a perpetual chip on his shoulder.  Sadly and arguably because of the Likud leader's natural bellicose demagoguery, one Japanese person has lost their life and another's hangs in the balance.