Benjamin Netanyahu

And one could say, in fact, he's been doing that for many years on this topic.

If you go back in time, there was a moment when Netanyahu claimed he supported a two-state solution, as did a lot of mainstream Israeli leaders.

Though it must be said that if you look at

Netanyahu's actions over the years, he's really consistently undermined the prospect for a Palestinian state, whether it is expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank or colluding with Hamas in the governance of Gaza, which had the effect of splitting the

geared toward allowing or encouraging the creation of a Palestinian state.

Now, in some senses, he's being clearer.

He's saying quite publicly that at the moment, he thinks a Palestinian state is a dire threat to Israel's security, but he's not willing to completely defy an American president, especially Donald Trump, when he includes this kind of

fairly wishy-washy language in his plan for Gaza.

So I think from Netanyahu's point of view, he sees this as something he's simply going to have to live with.

And perhaps he's also confident that Hamas will never accept it anyway.

So he won't be forced to live with anything that's in this plan anyway.

Well, Riyad Mansour is looking at this from his particular vantage point as a diplomat who has spent years, if not decades, lobbying countries to recognize a Palestinian state.

And in that, he and they have been remarkably successful.

You now have...

150-some countries that recognize a Palestinian state, and they include some of the most important and powerful countries in the world.

So from that point of view, the Palestinians have been remarkably successful.

But in the nuts and bolts sense of building a state, I think it's a much different story.

You have in Gaza a state of war and an enclave that's largely in ruins, where Gaza health officials put the death toll at more than 65,000.

In the West Bank, you have a territory that's been carved up by the Israelis into an ever-expanding set of Jewish settlements.

You have a Palestinian authority whose control and credibility is in question.