Now that the duelling speeches are over, Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, clearly have a morning-after problem. Mahmoud Abbas,?the?Palestinian president, does too. Mr Obama’s problem is that he cannot stop something with nothing. The UN General Assembly is in September likely to pass a resolution recognising a Palestinian state. That will ensure its speedy conversion into a Security Council resolution to declare Israel the occupying power of a UN member state.

Mr Obama is??now??committed to vetoing that resolution. But to defy overwhelming international support for the Palestinians will put America at odds with sentiment in the Arab world just as Mr Obama is trying to shape democratic transitions there. That could trigger all manner of unintended consequences. Tension is already building in the West Bank and along Israel’s border with Syria. Come September, it is not difficult to imagine tens of thousands of Palestinians demonstrating at Israeli checkpoints while newly elected Egyptian parliamentarians introduce legislation to abrogate the peace treaty with Israel. Mr Netanyahu has a similar morning-after problem. His Oval Office upbraiding of Mr Obama and his adulatory reception in Congress may have given him a bounce in the polls. But that will fade once Israelis realise his performance has done nothing to slow their growing isolation. By September, they will demand to know why he did not do something to avert the train wreck.

Mr Abbas is in a similar bind. Threatening a UNGA vote on Palestine is a useful tactic for upping the pressure on Mr Netanyahu and Mr Obama. But what will he do when Palestinians awake to the reality that the Israeli military occupation?has?not?ended and demand to know “Where’s our state?” If his only answer is a US-vetoed Security Council resolution, it will trigger further disillusionment in his already tarnished presidency. That is why he now declares his preference is for direct peace negotiations with Israel. His envoy said in Washington this week he is even ready to drop his precondition of a settlement freeze.