DAVID CAMERON and other European Union member states’ leader persist with their mythology that Israeli politicians, including Benjamin Netanyahu, are committed to a two-state solution in the Middle East.

Even when Netanyahu and others make clear their commitment to Israeli control of the whole of historical Palestine, Western leaders put their fingers in their ears.

They prefer to concoct pretexts to justify zionist intransigence and periodic bursts of mass slaughter rather than acknowledge steady Jewish colonisation of the West Bank.

Netanyahu dispensed with the diplomatic veil during this year’s general election.

He embraced anti-Arab racism, urging the Jewish electorate in his “The Arabs are coming” speech to throw their weight behind his party because Israel’s Palestinian minority was voting for a united list.

And he vowed to keep a grip on every inch of illegally colonised land on the West Bank.

This was not a throwaway remark. It was confirmed by a public statement issued by his Likud party.

“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that any evacuated territory would fall into the hands of Islamic extremism and terror organisations supported by Iran. Therefore, there will be no concessions and no withdrawals. It is simply irrelevant,” declared Likud.

To prevent misunderstanding, Netanyahu’s office added that this reflected the prime minister’s long-held position.

His spasm of honesty had the required effect of mobilising Jewish voters behind Likud, especially in the West Bank illegal settlements, and putting Netanyahu in the driving seat to cobble together a coalition of the least attractive elements of Israeli political life.

Quotations emanating from Netanyahu’s cabinet ministers and gathered by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) indicate that there is united opposition in the Israeli government to any idea of ending West Bank occupation or accepting the establishment of an independent Palestinian state.

This did not prevent Netanyahu from attempting after re-election to backtrack on his poll pledges, leading Barack Obama to comment that the Israeli leader had already clarified his true position.

Despite this, the EU still operates as though bilateral negotiations with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas could, with just a bit of goodwill on both sides, deliver a two-state formula to include a viable contiguous Palestinian state.

Cameron has always been a shameless advocate for zionism, excusing the massive slaughter in Gaza of over 2,000 Palestinians, including 500 children, by reiterating Israel’s right to defend itself.

Similar claptrap about the “indefensibility” of the 1967 ceasefire line ignores the reality that there has been no breach of Israel’s borders from the state’s establishment in 1948 until the present day.

The only changes have been outwards, bringing ethnic cleansing on the West Bank, ongoing death and destruction in Gaza and international failure to secure the right of Palestinian refugees to return home.

As PSC chair Hugh Lanning said before delivering a petition to Cameron yesterday, it is imperative “to impose immediate sanctions on Israel, including a full two-way arms embargo.”

There is growing public awareness of the justice of this position.

The problem is with cynical Establishment politicians who refuse to acknowledge the evidence before their eyes.

Just as the apartheid South Africa’s political and economic top brass would never have willingly embraced change without comprehensive sanctions being imposed, the same goes for the leadership of apartheid Israel.

Pious words are not enough. Only sanctions can push Tel Aviv to accept that it cannot flout international law and that it must evacuate illegally occupied Palestinian land.