Picture the scene. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is off to Washington to see Barack Obama next week for the first time in more than a year. Their last major dealings were in March, when Netanyahu travelled to the US to speak to Congress in a bid to undermine a key plank of the US president’s foreign policy – reaching a nuclear deal with Iran.

This time Netanyahu wants a favour. He hopes to squeeze from Obama billions more of US taxpayers’ hard-earnt dollars in “aid” so that he can buy yet more weapons to use against the Palestinians.