Last year, for the first time in recent memory, not one Israeli was killed as a consequence of Palestinian violence or terror in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, an extraordinary testament to the “security calm” that Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) have achieved in the years following the second intifada. Already in September 2010, the World Bank declared that the PA, under the leadership of president Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, “because of its current performance in institution-building and delivery of public services … is well-positioned for the establishment of a state at any point in the near future.”

Yet, notwithstanding the Palestinians' impressive achievements in institution-building and security performance, and indeed in some measure because of them, the prospect of an end to Israel's occupation enabling Palestinians to be “masters of their own fate” in “their own sovereign state” — appear as distant as ever, at least in the West Bank where the PA has followed American and international prescriptions for decades.

These eloquent words about statehood and sovereignty were spoken by President Barack Obama in his recent visit to Israel and the West Bank, but they were meant to describe Israel's, not Palestine's success. Obama paid tribute to the PA's ability and acknowledged the fairness of Palestinian national aspirations, but beyond the now-familiar bromides he offered nothing much in the way of enabling them to be masters of their own fate in their own sovereign state.

George W. Bush remains the architect of this policy. In June 2002, in the middle of the second intifada and shortly after Israel's operation "Defensive Shield" closed the door on the Olso model, Bush offered the tantalizing promise of U.S. support for Palestinian statehood if Palestinians rejected Arafat and his failed effort to end the occupation.