Around five thousand people came out onto the streets of Ljubljana on the very day Israel opened its first ambassadorial mission in Slovenia. The protest slogan was blunt: "No to the genocide embassy." At the same moment, inside the building, Israeli foreign minister Gideon Saar was shaking hands with Slovenian minister Tone Kajzer.

After the meeting Kajzer said it was time, "after a long period", for relations between the two states to be strengthened and for cooperation to shift into "a higher gear". Outside, the crowd was criticising both Israeli policy and its own government's move.

What makes this scene stronger than an ordinary protest is how short the turnaround was. The previous Slovenian government recognised Palestine, condemned Israeli actions in the Gaza Strip and in the illegal settlements, and banned arms trade with that state. Since June, Janez Jansa's Slovenian Democratic Party has been in power, and by September an embassy is opening and there is talk of a higher gear. The opposition today accused the new government of running an "Israeli foreign policy".

Who was on the square

Former president Milan Kucan and former justice minister Andreja Katic were among those attending. When a former head of state joins the ranks of demonstrators against a move by the current government, that is no longer a citizens' protest - it is an open split at the top of the country's politics.

The Movement for the Rights of Palestinians had already issued a public appeal to the government against opening the embassy two weeks earlier, signed by 41 organisations and over 300 individuals. The appeal did not help. The ceremony went ahead on schedule.

What Slovenia demonstrates is how thin the line is between "the state's position" and "the current government's position" in small countries. Within one year the same state first recognised Palestine and then opened an Israeli embassy - without a single event in the world that would in itself require the reversal. The government changed, the foreign policy changed. Would anything be different here?