Donald Trump’s remarks at his press conference with Binyamin Netanyahu that he could “like” whatever solution Israel and Palestine come up with put the international community in an uncomfortable position. Until then, the world could pretend that a two-state solution was doable, despite Israel’s relentless settlement building, and offer the occasional protest, such as Trump’s own: “Hold off on settlements for a bit.”

All this Israel could, and did, disregard. Indeed, things have gone so far that four key ministers in Netanyahu’s government are able to say they don’t want a Palestinian state at all. Netanyahu himself insists on security control west of the Jordan river. In fact, the late former prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, hailed as the great peacemaker, also wanted security control west of the Jordan, which would have placed serious limits to such a state’s sovereignty.

That raises the question: why want a state at all? As a minimum, a sovereign state should be able to guarantee the security of its citizens within its borders.

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