The Spectator’s Notes | 1 July 2006

A listener to the BBC on Tuesday might have concluded that the Palestinians were about to recognise the state of Israel. This was because, as I heard on the PM programme, it said so. But then it was over to Jeremy Bowen in Jerusalem. He spoke excitedly of ‘movement’ but explained that he had not seen the document in question and that it would not make any mention of the recognition of Israel. The point was that Hamas, or rather a part of Hamas, was talking of accepting a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and therefore, by implication, of recognising Israel in its pre-1967 borders. It is like the claim that the Palestinian Covenant was rescinded by the Oslo Accords — when you looked, you couldn’t really find that it had been. One of the great skills of terrorist movements is pushing out the idea that they are about to do something ‘historic’ and then offering to sell yet again, for more concessions, a horse they have sold before.