And yet, I also know that when America puts something this detailed on the table, it cannot be ignored, at least in the near term. Netanyahu already announced that with Trump’s blessings Israel will quickly move to apply its law (tantamount to annexation) to the West Bank’s Jordan Valley and all Jewish settlements in the occupied territory. It will be interesting to see how the European Union, which funds much of the Palestinian governing infrastructure in the West Bank, responds once it’s studied the plan, not to mention the reaction of everyday Palestinians and Arabs. (I don’t expect much. This conflict seems to have passed its fix-by date.)

O.K., despite the obvious political motivation for the timing of the release of this plan, not to mention much of its substance, is there anything in it that would impress me that the Trump administration is actually serious about promoting a two-state solution — and actually has a strategy to achieve one?

Yes, if our president did something hard. What would that be? It would be his telling Netanyahu that before Bibi extends Israeli law to all these West Bank settlements and the Jordan Valley, Trump wants one thing: an unequivocal public statement that Netanyahu accepts the fact that while Israel is getting East Jerusalem, more than 20 percent of the core West Bank, with all its settlements, plus the Jordan Valley, the remaining roughly 70 percent will become an independent Palestinian state, if Palestinians agree to all sorts of security requirements.

Trump needs to say to Netanyahu: “Bibi, you say that I am the most pro-Israel president to ever sit in the White House. This plan was written with your team. I have supported your maximum position — absorbing all the Jewish settlements into Israel and all of traditional Jerusalem, and with no return of Palestinian refugees to Israel. Now I need to know, the Palestinians need to know, and the world needs to know, that this is not your new starting position. Will you agree right now that the remaining land will be a Palestinian state if the Palestinians agree to demilitarization and recognize Israel as a Jewish state? Will you agree — right now — to make no further claims ever to the West Bank and not build another settlement ever outside the areas that the Trump plan assigns to Israel?”

If Trump were to spend just a little bit of political capital doing that, I might start to take this plan seriously. But if Netanyahu is allowed to evade that question, or turns Trump down with no consequences, then this whole thing truly is a farce — it’s just the new baseline for Netanyahu’s next West Bank land grab.