After Barack Obama’s disgraceful one-sided speech at the UN, one can’t help feeling the opportunity to create history has passed him by.

Didn’t the same US President campaign last year for a Palestinian state? Now, one way or another, the same President will ensure a veto.

We were told only of Israeli suffering, including the holocaust, exile and the threat of rockets fired into their country.

But why no mention on illegal settlements, occupation, refugee return or Palestinians threatened by helicopter, planes and tanks?

Mahmoud Abbas, once a busted flush, has suddenly emerged as a hero, just like his predecessor, Egyptian leader Gamal Nasser, and will be remembered long after Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu are forgotten in the mist of time.

I’ll be very surprised if the vast majority of Arabs around the world forgive Obama and the US for this veto, back door or not. This could effectively be the end of the US and its role in Middle East peace negotiations as a “true broker”. Especially after 20 years of deliberate stalling.

Why does he embrace the Arab Spring but reject Arabs if they are Palestinian?

As I’ve written before in these pages, the best security for Israel is to live in peace with its recognised neighbour and Palestine will find statehood, of that there is no doubt.

Former Israeli leader Ariel Sharon once called Abbas “a plucked chicken”. I wonder if this new hero of the United Nations will come home to roost?

TIM W SIRET, Millmoor Crescent, Eynsham