What is it that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is prepared to do that he never dreamed of doing? He recently got to “two states for two peoples,” but that was just playing catch-up. Beyond all the unseemly bartering of recent weeks, with its focus on what happens in the West Bank in the next 60 days, lies the core issue of where Netanyahu imagines a Palestinian state.

The Palestinians have stated their position: The 1967 borders plus or minus agreed land swaps, meaning a state in the West Bank and Gaza with East Jerusalem as its capital. In return, President Mahmoud Abbas has said, Palestinians will drop all “historical claims” and live alongside a secure Israel in peace.

Netanyahu and Israelis have plenty of cause for skepticism, not least the Fatah-Hamas division in the Palestinian national movement and the way withdrawal from Gaza led to rockets from Hamas.

President Barack Obama has to overcome that skepticism if his words to the United Nations General Assembly five weeks ago are not to be added to the long list of well-meaning Middle East blather. Those words were: “When we come back here next year, we can have an agreement that will lead to a new member of the United Nations — an independent sovereign state of Palestine, living in peace with Israel.”