President Donald Trump’s appearance at a White House news conference Feb. 15 with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reminded me of my grandmother, may she rest in peace, who often grumbled about Israeli leaders. She usually signed off from her carping with a heavy sigh and muttered, “But heaven help us, he’s our very own fool.” An Israeli listening to Trump’s remarks clearly saw a leader who doesn't bother doing his homework or studying for exams. Trump’s understanding of the ins and outs of the Arab-Israeli conflict barely measures up to that of an average Israeli news consumer. An Israeli might say, “But Trump is not our fool. He’s the Americans’ problem.” The late Israeli Prime Minister Levi Eshkol would have responded to that, saying, “When the United States sneezes, Israel comes down with pneumonia.”

The backdrop, staging and goodwill gestures were perfect in Washington. The citizens of Israel saw their prime minister and his spouse being welcomed to the top of the world like royalty. The nefarious expression “Palestinian state” failed to mar the cloying sweetness. The leader of the free world released the Israeli government from the curse of Netanyahu’s 2009 Bar-Ilan speech espousing a two-state solution. For the Israeli right, this is worth more than the coveted relocation of the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, a Trump campaign promise the president doesn’t seem about to fulfill.

Trump made no mention whatsoever of the so-called Regulation Law — the land theft statute legalizing unauthorized West Bank settlements — which was harshly criticized by European leaders and even by Israeli President Reuven Rivlin when the Knesset passed it Feb. 6. There was a lot of talk about terrorism and incitement and, of course, about radical Islam. Not a word was spoken about the Oslo Accord, signed by Israel and the Palestinians in September 1993, almost 24 years ago, which is half the length of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, yet another topic omitted from the rhetoric.

Even Naftali Bennett, chair of the right-wing HaBayit HaYehudi and the Netanyahu family’s archenemy, was pleased with the White House meeting. The generous host left it up to the Israelis and Palestinians to choose their preferred solution to their conflict. He doesn’t care if they decide on one state or two states, just as long as they enable him to make a “deal.” Public opinion polls in Israel and the West Bank actually indicate that Jews and Palestinians would prefer a peaceful separation into two states. They understand that having one state would, in a worst-case scenario, turn Israel from a Jewish state into a binational state and eventually into a majority-Palestinian state, and in an even more terrible scenario, into a leper apartheid state between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River.