Neither Netanyahu nor Abbas is able or willing to make the far-reaching ideological and political concessions necessary to sustain serious new peace talks. Yet this stark reality does not necessarily render Abbas' threat to appeal to the UN a bad thing. The Palestinian UN gambit reflects a readiness on Abbas' part to make a huge concession at the UN that he will not or cannot make in negotiations: accept a determination regarding statehood, territory and a capital in Jerusalem without immediate reference to the "deal-breaking" issues of the right of return and the Jerusalem holy places.

A European and moderate Arab bloc could seize upon this new reality and leverage the Palestinian statehood initiative at the UN into a "win-win" resolution that awards the Palestinians a state within the 1967 lines with its capital in East Jerusalem, but balance this with advantages attractive to Israel. When Abbas sits down at the negotiating table as president of a UN-mandated state of Palestine rather than (under Oslo) as chairman of the PLO with its huge refugee constituency, the conflict will become a much more manageable state-to-state affair.