Abbas wins from this stalemate

Israel and the Palestinian Authority are stuck in an arm-wrestling match. The situation seems like a giant waste of time and energy. It's rather boring. Israel owes PA President Mahmoud Abbas nothing, despite MK Ahmad Tibi's explanation to the Jewish audience in Israel that if not for the PA president, Tel Avivians would not be able to sip their espressos in the caf s. Israel owes him nothing because Abbas initiated the collapse of the peace talks with former Prime Ministers Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert and he turned his back on current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The diplomatic result is an empty draw. Allegedly, it's a tie score. Abbas, however, benefits from the frozen situation, Netanyahu loses. This is because the final political tally is not formed by the reality of life in Jerusalem and Ramallah, in Tel Aviv or Gaza, but rather in the capitals of Europe and North America. In these places, Israel is paying a steep price.

This is not justice. The Europeans and Americans know the chaos around the globe is not caused by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, rather despite it. Muslims travelled from Europe to fill the ranks of the Islamic State group, not because of Operation Protective Edge but because of the grinding dissonance between the democratic abundance they enjoyed in the West and the sense of inferiority and discrimination they developed there, perhaps more so in England than anywhere else.

The loathing of ISIS, al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas toward Israel in particular and toward the West in general will not be alleviated one bit if the Israel Defense Forces withdraws, not only from Yitzhar and Ariel, but from the holy places of Jerusalem. But Israel is paying the price of this stalemate with Abbas with double the interest in friendly Western capitals. In Holland and Germany, even in France and England, authorities are afraid of allowing Jews to build sukkahs (temporary huts built for the Sukkot holiday) over Sukkot, because Muslim youths are liable to riot in the streets.

Countries in the Americas and Africa shake like leaves at the trifling power of Islamic State, and are fighting it with unsteady hands while buying into the sweet illusion that if there were only progress in the Israeli-Palestinian arena they would be able to advance their strategic interests against Iran and the terrorist groups. This is a mistake, and Israel is being forced to pay the price for it.

These are not inconsequential countries. Egyptian President Abdel-Fattah el-Sissi told Netanyahu in no uncertain terms that regional stability and alliances will not precede an Israeli-Palestinian agreement. The plot will unfold on the basis of Sissi's words. On Monday we saw this story begin to play out across two diplomatic junctions:

• U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon lambasted Jerusalem from the heart of Jerusalem itself. Netanyahu was on the stage next to him. Until now, similar verbal shots have been fired from a distance.

Worst of all was the near total consensus in the British parliament to recognize the independent existence of Palestine. England is not only important; it is first and foremost a friend. This can certainly be said of the British government and Prime Minister David Cameron. If he abstains from a vote initiated by the opposition to recognize Palestine -- Israel has a diplomatic problem on its hands.

A country that wants to win on the diplomatic battlefields of the Western world must either offer a reasonable price or get gouged, despite the dubious justification for making Israel pay in the first place. From the European perspective, minimizing construction in some of the settlements is an agreeable amount.

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