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Six years ago this week, David Cameron told the House of Commons that Gaza was a "giant, open prison". He got the phrase from Chris Patten, the former Conservative Party chairman and then-president of Medical Aid for Palestinians, who, shortly before, had spent a two-hour flight bending the new Prime Minister's ear about the alleged evils of Israeli policy towards the Hamas-run enclave.
A month later in Turkey, Cameron went on the attack again, saying that Gaza "must not be allowed to remain a prison camp" and labelling Israel's attack on the Mava Marmara flotilla as "completely unacceptable".
After 13 years of the avowedly pro-Israel Blair and Brown governments, Jerusalem appeared to be in for a nasty surprise. And yet, as this week's warm tributes from Benjamin Netanyahu and members of his cabinet underlined - the Israeli Prime Minister praising Mr Cameron as "a true friend of Israel and the Jewish people" - Mr Cameron's tenure in Downing Street has not been characterised by this rocky start.
Quite the contrary. It is possible to count on one hand the occupants of Number 10 who have truly had Israel's back. Mr Cameron now joins that small but illustrious group of Harold Wilson, Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and Gordon Brown. As under his predecessors, there have of course continued to be moments when London and Jerusalem have not seen eye to eye.
Under Mr Cameron, Britain has voiced Western impatience with continued Israeli settlement-building on a number of occasions. In February, the Prime Minister engaged in a public spat with Mr Netanyahu after criticising the "the genuinely shocking effective encirclement of East Jerusalem".
If his plan was to woo Jewish voters, it paid off
"My friend David Cameron, who is undoubtedly a friend of Israel, seems to have forgotten a few basic facts about Jerusalem," Mr Netanyahu hit back. "Only Israeli sovereignty guarantees the Arab residents the city roads, clinics, employment and all the other trappings of normal life their brethren do not enjoy elsewhere in the Middle East."
But, unlike the last of his Labour opponents across the despatch box, Jeremy Corbyn, Mr Cameron has been clear that he does not regard anti-Zionism as a "legitimate form of political discourse". Thus he has drawn a sharp line between criticising Israeli government policies and standing up to attempts to delegitimise the Jewish state or deny its right to defend its citizens against terrorism. For Israel, that has produced concrete results.
Despite being shackled to the anti-Israel Liberal Democrats for most of his time in office, within just over a year of coming to power, Mr Cameron had fulfilled Mr Brown's promise to amend the universal jurisdiction legislation that anti-Israel activists had attempted to abuse in order to harass visiting Israeli politicians. In 2009, then Opposition leader Tzipi Livni cancelled a visit to Britain after an application for a warrant for her arrest.
"These are dark times, but we mustn't let fear cloud our judgment." My latest for @JewishChron https://t.co/PuHwPnKON3
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While maintaining Britain's long-standing support for a two-state solution, Mr Cameron has attempted to block Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to avoid direct talks with Israel by "internationalising" the conflict. Despite parliament voting overwhelmingly in favour in October 2014, the Prime Minister refused to unilaterally recognise a Palestinian state.
Mr Cameron understood that Ed Miliband's support for the vote was politically driven and that, in practical terms, it was as a meaningless gesture which would do nothing to encourage the two sides to make the necessary compromises required to actually bring about an independent Palestine.
But it was the war between Israel and Hamas two years ago which was to prove the greatest test of Mr Cameron's mettle. With the Liberal Democrats leading the charge for the government to condemn Israel - a bandwagon swiftly jumped on by Mr Miliband and his Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander - the Prime Minister held his tongue.
In reality, the difference between Mr Cameron and his opponents was more one of tone: all consistently agreed on the need for a ceasefire. However, while Labour and the Lib Dems engaged in a rhetorical arms race against Israel - one probably won by Mr Alexander's suggestion that its actions "shame our common humanity" - Mr Cameron placed the blame for the fighting squarely on the shoulders of Hamas.
Even an apparent shift in policy on selling arms to Israel - after heavy squabbling within the coalition, the Lib Dem Business Secretary Vince Cable announced that Britain would re-examine export licenses for British weaponry headed for Israel - proved no more than empty rhetoric. When, after a pause in the conflict, fighting resumed, there was no re-examination.
Opponents charged that Mr Cameron's support for Israel was politically driven: that, fighting to win a majority in 2015, he was acutely aware that every vote counted and that his actions were guided by an attempt to woo the small but heavily concentrated Jewish vote in marginal seats such as Hendon, Finchley and Golders Green, Harrow East and Ilford North. If this was his plan, it appeared to pay off: on the eve of the 2015 general election, a poll for the JC revealed that 69 per cent of Jews intended to vote Conservative.
However, such psephological explanations are too simplistic. As Paul Goodman, editor of the Conservative Home website, warned during Operation Protective Edge, the politics of the conflict were not clear-cut for the Tories. While Muslim voters are primarily to be found in safe Labour seats, like other minority groups they are beginning to move from urban to suburban areas. Indeed, some Tory MPs experienced Muslim anger over Mr Cameron's stance in their inboxes during the war.
Perhaps a fairer criticism of Mr Cameron is that his efforts to show solidarity with Israel were sometimes more stylistic than substantive. The government's much-trumpeted "ban" on anti-Israel boycotts, for instance, turned out to be little more than a reissuing of existing procurement guidance to local authorities and public bodies. Nonetheless, as an attempt to show the British government's disapproval of the BDS movement it sent a powerful message, albeit one which may prove to have limited effect.
Ultimately unsuccessful in his attempt to stop the Tory party "banging on" about Europe - a failure which has now cost him his job - history may not look too kindly on Mr Cameron's six years in Downing Street. Friends of Israel, however, might choose to be more generous.
