That should solve all their problems. Not!

As expected and predicted the UN Assembly has voted "overwhelmingly to recognize the Palestinian state". Or so says the headline, though it is not entirely accurate. What they now have is "non-member observer status", which is akin to what the Vatican has.

It is, indeed, a victory for Mahmoud Abbas, though whether Hamas will agree to him representing the "Palestinian state" is not clear, and a defeat for the nine countries that voted against: Israel, United States, Canada, the Czech Republic, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau and Panama. Well, well, and what of our own government and its representative? Abstained, that's what.

The Commentator reminds us of the following:

Israeli politician Abba Eban once noted of the United Nations that if Algeria introduced a resolution declaring that the Earth was flat, and that Israel had flattened it, it would pass by a vote of 164 to 13 with 26 abstentions.

And one of them will be the UK, which according to this article has now been reduced to a bit-player in the Middle East. I'd say it happened some time ago but it is certainly true now.