It's important that the US be seen as providing leadership and empowering the moderate forces in the region. It is how progress is made, or at least how total disaster can be avoided.
Warning Israel against building security walls doesn't "empower the moderate voices in the region," it encourages the terrorist forces in the region.
Scraping the burnt toast doesn't salvage a ruined meal.
That is a fine sentiment.
However, Abbas, as with every prior Palestinian leader, has a terrorist position in private, in the company of other Arab leaders and in actions that are under his control.
The only "moderate" position that Abbas has involves the public presentations he makes for western consumption and the "moderate" tone he takes with western governments.
That moderation is no different that the Marxist/Soviet overtures for "peace"; just another tactic in war.
Scratch any "moderate" Palestinian leader and you will find someone who is simply trying to develop western influence in a goal and agenda that is no different than the openly "terrorist" Palestinians goal - the eventual destruction of the state of Israel.
And we should participate in that goal because?
I would work for a POTUS in 2008 that gives the Palestinians one year to sign a permanent peace treaty with Israel, afterwhich we would ask Jordon to take joint authority with Israel in the west bank and Egypt to take joint authority with Israel in Gaza, with the goal to let Jordan and Egypt annex those areas completely - end of discussion.
There has only ever been one impediment to peace in Palestine - the willingness of Arab Palestinians to fully accept the state of Israel and to accept Israel's right to live in peace.
That was their failure when the infant state of Israel had less than half of its present area. That was not good enough.
That was their failure when Jordan "occupied" the west bank and Eqypt "occupied" Gaza. Still, the failure of the Palestinians to form a peaceful state side by side with Israel was sold as Isreal's fault, when the truth is that a Palestinian state in the west bank and Gaza was not good enough. Of course, there was no move by Jordan or Egypt to actually release those areas to Palestinian governance either. The truth is that the goal then, as now, was the destruction of Israel and that was the public policy of Jordan, Egypt and the PLO.
That was their failure when Jordan and Eqypt lost control of those areas in war, a war they and the Palestinians started. After that war, and the Palestinian losses in that war, the Palestinians expanded their war of terror instead of opening peace negotiations with Isreal to salvage someting for "Palestine". That was not enough. The goal remained the destruction of Israel.
That was their failure when they continued that war of terror and brought the Israeli IDF into a defensive "occupation" in those areas lost in war. That was good for their terrorist propoganda machine because they had a public excuse for their terrorism against Israel - "occupation".
That was their failure when Israel pulled the IDF out of those areas, for 13 years, to advance the Oslo accords, only to be met with renewed terrorism when Arafat would not come to final agreement on terms for peace. Why? Those terms would have accepted the state of Israel.
The Palestinians have had many occasions to reach a peace with Isreal.
They have preferred continued war instead, because they have never given up the goal of destroying Israel.
What they seek in "negotiation" is nothing less than for Israel to negotiate away its own existence.
The west has been taken for fools in that venture and their foolish position has made for common cause with people and a culture that seeks the end of western culture as we know it.
The west's flirtation with the Palestinian cause as well as the use of the excuse of that cause among Arabs is nothing other than suicidal for the west.
The fact is that the Middle East, if push were to come to shove, needs the west's purchase of its oil far more than the west needs the oil. The absence of that oil for western markets would be met by technological innovation and efficient-energy advancements; economic adpatations that the middel east regimes are neither prepared for or capable of matching to their changed situation without western support.
But, the west's view of diplomacy has nearly always been predominately shortsighted until myopic failure creates a crisis (40 years of the priority of Middle East "stability" simply permits the building of the breeding ground for Islamic fascist terrorism).
Thus will be the eventual case-study failure with trying to help a Palestinian state whose leaders will never be satisfied without the destruction of Israel.