Give Mahmoud Abbas credit, at least, for consistency. Eighteen months ago, when the then-new Obama administration tried to jump start Middle East peace negotiations, the Palestinian president balked. He said he would not agree even to meet the newly-elected Israeli Prime Minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, unless Netanyahu made several big concessions in advance -- including recognition of a Palestinian state on the basis of Israel's 1967 borders and a freeze on all Jewish settlement construction in the West Bank.

Convinced that Netanyahu was the problem, the Obama administration spent the next year in a crude and clumsy effort to extract those concessions. Netanyahu stoutly resisted; the administration belatedly discovered that it could not compel a democratic ally to comply with its demands. Eventually a rough compromise emerged: Netanyahu publicly accepted the idea, but not the pre-defined borders, of a Palestinian state; and he imposed a partial and temporary freeze on the settlements, which is due to expire in September. The administration agreed that should be good enough to start formal peace talks.

But Abbas, who watched this diplomatic drama from the sidelines, never changed. He's still refusing to meet Netanyahu unless the Israeli leader -- or Obama -- gurantees those big concessions on borders and settlements in advance. He's held firm through multiple visits by the administration's long-suffering envoy, former senator George Mitchell. He's resisted pressure from Arab leaders. He's been warned that the White House -- home to the most pro-Palestinian president since Jimmy Carter -- is about to lose patience with him. Still, he refuses to budge...