George W. Bush’s arrival in Jerusalem to celebrate Wednesday’s 60th anniversary of the creation of the state of Israel – the most powerful nation on earth standing shoulder to shoulder with the most powerful country in the Middle East – should be pregnant with political possibility. Instead, it is merely poignant.

Israel’s president, Shimon Peres, told the US president who has done so much damage in the Middle East, that “you stood like nobody else on our side”. True, but not helpful to Israel’s long-term interests. America’s standing in the Arab and Muslim worlds has been brought so low by Mr Bush that its friendship is toxic. Even more important, the written guarantees Mr Bush gave former prime minister Ariel Sharon on April 14 2004 – in effect signing over the main Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Arab east Jerusalem to Israeli sovereignty – will, if honoured, place a two-states solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict beyond reach.