As a speech, it targeted headline writers with perfect accuracy. The words “Netanyahu”, “Palestinian” and “state” duly appeared in the same sentence, without the word “not”. But nothing in Sunday’s speech by Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, suggests he believes that freedom for the Palestinians, in their own state, on their own land, is the key to peace and the long-term security of Israelis.

Mr Netanyahu was replying to Barack Obama’s trenchant speech in Cairo on June 4, when the US president said that “just as Israel’s right to exist cannot be denied, neither can Palestine’s”. Mr Obama also said the US would “not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements” in the occupied territories.