Yet another meeting of would-be Middle East peacemakers – the Quartet made up of the US, United Nations, European Union and Russia – has yielded yet more pious exhortations to Israelis and Palestinians to agree the terms of a future Palestinian state. Nobody is holding his breath, and no wonder.

Since last November’s conference in Annapolis, when the two direct parties to the conflict undertook to negotiate a resolution to it by the end of this year, prospects for peace have gone sharply backwards.