Ezer Weizman, supported by Israel's opposition Labor…

Ezer Weizman, supported by Israel's opposition Labor Party, is reelected president on March 4, 1998, defeating the prime minister's candidate, Shaul Amor, in the Knesset sixty-three to forty-nine

Tensions between Weizman and Netanyahu are exacerbated as the outspoken president criticizes the prime minister's failure to take the peace process forward.

Strains in Israel's relations with Europe come to the fore when British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, representing the U.K. presidency of the European Union, visits the controversial Har Homa construction site in Jerusalem on March 17, and, contrary to a previous agreement with the Israelis, shakes hands with a Palestinian leader there. (It had been the start of construction work on the site by the Israelis a year earlier that had led to the collapse of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks and the ensuing stalemate.)