Israeli, particularly a military man, talk like that. Of course, then as always, the Israel lobby in the United States loved to depict embattled Israel as only one step from annihilation by the blood-thirsty Arabs unless the United States offered unconditional support.

But no-one believed it. Back in the late 1970s, most people thought that something approaching a tolerable deal could be reached through the UN. It wouldn't be everything the Palestinians wanted, but they would get at least a half-way decent state-let; the settlements would stop, maybe even get rolled back.

By 2008, these notions look as quaint as a Victorian Christmas card. The notional Palestinian state occasionally proffered by the over-weaning Israelis is a patchwork of separate enclaves, boxed in by settlements, dissected by Jews-only military roads, with limited access to water.

Hamas, the political party voted for by desperate Palestinians, is stigmatised by the US and EU as a terrorist body. When Jimmy Carter, the US president in office when I

interviewed General Matti Peled, denounced Israel's siege of Gaza as an appalling crime against civilians a few weeks ago, he himself was savaged as the accomplice of terror.

In the United States, it is true, there are more questions asked today about the power of the Israel lobby than a generation ago, but these are mere ripples on the wide ocean of Congressional support for anything the hawks in Israel might request. Thus, no mainstream US presidential candidate has dared to do anything more than echo the same sentiment as Hillary Clinton with all appropriate ferocity. The sentiment was the threat to obliterate Iran if it threatens Israel's existence. And 'threaten' can be defined in an almost unlimited number of ways.

Voyaging to Israel this week, Bush has hopes to bring his eight-year submission to the Israeli hawks to a finale with some sort of 'Oslo-II' agreement, giving permanent sanctions to Israel's land-grabs and final consignment of all UN agreements to the dustbin of history.

But his trip to Israel has had the misfortune to coincide with the gravest charges of