On January 29, out of the blue, Britain’s foreign minister Lord Cameron declared that because Palestinians needed to see “irreversible progress to a two-state solution”, Britain and its allies would consider recognizing a Palestinian state.

Speaking at a reception for Arab ambassadors, he said there needed to be an immediate pause in the conflict in Gaza; the release of all the hostages held by Hamas; and “most important of all is to give the Palestinian people a political horizon”.

On the next day, the Jerusalem Post carried a story headlined: “US might recognize Palestinian state after war.” It reported that US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had ordered the State Department to start examining the possibility of US and international recognition of a State of Palestine the day after the Gaza war ended. One strand of opinion in the State Department, it said, apparently favors recognition of a Palestinian state as the first, rather than the last, step in a renewed peace process aimed at guaranteeing Israel’s security in a two-state solution.

Hooked on the nostrum of a two-state solution, much of the world, including a swath of Arab opinion, subscribes to the view that it has been Israeli intransigence that has frustrated this deeply desired outcome by the Palestinians. For example Husam Zomlot, Palestinian ambassador to the UK, told the media on the following day that Cameron’s remarks about recognizing a Palestinian state were “historic”. Pursuing the Palestinian Authority strategy of supporting the two-state ideal, inherited from its first leader, Yasser Arafat, he said:

“It is the first time a UK........

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