It might have taken almost four years to happen but now that it has, no one can fault the substance of David Cameron’s visit to Israel. His speech to the Knesset on Wednesday was not just firm in support of Israel; it was a tour d’horizon of British-Israeli relations that met all reasonable expectations of such a speech. He was withering about the boycott campaign; he was alive to the threat posed by delegitimisation; and he was rightly proud of the contribution of British Jews.

It was telling that in the same week that Baroness Ashton was in Tehran, shmoozing the Ayatollahs on behalf of the EU, Mr Cameron was acknowledging to the Knesset that Israel had just intercepted another “despicable” attempt by the Iranians to smuggle more long-range rockets into Gaza.

The real purpose of his visit, however, was trade, worth over £5.1 billion between our two nations in 2013. Mr Cameron’s plane to Israel was full of the men and women whose businesses are contributing to this bilateral trade bonanza. That is the reality of British-Israeli relations, and that is why attempts to destroy that relationship are doomed to irrelevance.