The Prime Minister travels to Israel early tomorrow, and will spend the day there, before going on to the Palestinian Authority. It’s his first visit as Prime Minister, which is itself interesting. Quite why it has taken him four years to get round to it is the subject of mild curiosity both here and in Tel Aviv. He was supposed to go last month but the trip was postponed because of the floods. It’s fairest to say that, relative to some of his predecessors, the Middle East peace process has not grabbed him as an issue. Britain is an important player in the region, as part of the wider European Union engagement, and William Hague has made it one of his major policy priorities. But Mr Cameron has so far not used his time in office to establish his bona fides as an interlocutor worth listening to.

He arrives at a sensitive time. Benjamin Netanyahu has been to Washington recently and was told to get on with a deal by Barack Obama, who presumably will deliver the same message to Mahmoud Abbas when he goes to DC next week. Meanwhile, various EU leaders – Angela Merkel, Francois Hollande – have visited Tel Aviv of late to add their voices to the calls for a now-or-never deal. There’s talk of a last throw of the dice, though such language has been heard before. The EU, as both Israel’s biggest trading partner and the biggest funder of the PA, has a strong voice.

Read the article in full at the Daily Telegraph.