The ceasefire brokered by President Trump between Israel and Hamas, part of the peace plan unveiled on Sept. 29, has not been complete. There have been internecine killings within the Gaza Strip, and Israel and Hamas have engaged in violent clashes. Importantly, however, these have been sporadic and limited. Vice President JD Vance, visiting the region, has said that its implementation is “going better than expected.”

Even Trump’s enemies acknowledge that he was the prime mover in reaching a point at which Israel and Hamas agreed, however grudgingly and with however many qualifications, to suspend military activity.

It has been a strange experience for Britain’s government. The United Kingdom is deeply mired in the Middle East conflict — it was a British foreign secretary who issued the Balfour Declaration in 1917, pledging support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” The British oversaw the transformation of the former Ottoman Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem and the Sanjaks of Nablus and Acre into the League of Nations Mandate of Palestine, which the U.K. administered from 1920 until 1948. There has always been a feeling, whether of entitlement or regret, that Britain is an actor in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The U.K.’s role in Trump’s peace plan has been marginal. When the Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson, argued that Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s presence at the signing ceremony in Egypt “demonstrates the key role that we........

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