Kathryn, I share what is (I suspect) your profound suspicion of many in the Palestinian political leadership and (again, I suspect, like you) I worry about conveying legitimacy to politicians who deserve none, nevertheless I think that for the President to have met those guys was a good idea. After all, it is clearly in the US interest for there to be peace in that part of the Middle East, and if there is to be peace, the Palestinians are going to have to buy in to it, and if there is any chance that’s going to happen the US must be seen as an honest broker. And all that’s going to take talking. A lot of talking.

It was, after all, Churchill who said that jaw-jaw was better than war-war, and I don’t think that anyone would call him an appeaser.