Few peoples have ever been as badly betrayed by their leaders as the Palestinians. For seven decades, their refusal to adapt, compromise or even negotiate has brought them nothing but misery. This week, Donald Trump proposed yet another peace plan. Both the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his rival, General Benny Gantz, came to Washington. But the Palestinians refused even to sit down with them.

The late Abba Eban, for many years Israel’s Foreign Minister, is supposed to have coined the phrase that sums up the history of the Palestinians: “They never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.”

The baleful legacy of Yasser Arafat means that the Palestinian position has barely altered since the Six Day War in 1967, when they could have had almost the whole West Bank in return for peace. Since then, successive US presidents have tried to broker variations on the same deal. Today, they could have four fifths of the West Bank, plus Gaza and parts of Sinai, in return for peace. As a sweetener, Trump is offering $50 billion. There would be infrastructure projects to link up the territories. The Palestinians are still not interested.

Mahmoud Abbas, Arafat’s successor, has not held an election for 15 years. Nobody knows how representative of his people this octogenarian mediocrity really is. His only achievement has been to keep the flow of aid pouring into the coffers of his corrupt regime. The Palestinian Authority has no authority because there is no accountability. The status quo suits everyone except the people who should matter most.

Nothing has changed and yet everything has changed. Israel is now a prosperous, powerful, progressive democracy whose Palestinian citizens are the most fortunate Arabs in the Middle East. Since political agreement seems so difficult, the focus should be on improving the lot of the Palestinians who find themselves on the wrong side of the fence.

Much has been done to raise their living standards and, with a little goodwill on both sides, much more could be done. First, though, the violence has to stop. Trust is in short supply and the Israeli public is weary of the whole issue. The Trump initiative could break the political stalemate, but nobody is holding their breath.

The fundamental fact is that no Israeli government will risk creating a larger Gaza in the West Bank. Hamas remains committed to the destruction of the Jewish state and there is still no sign that a more moderate Palestinian leadership is emerging. After generations of indoctrination with hatred of Israel and the glorification of “martyrdom”, how could it be otherwise?

And yet there was some point in calling Abbas’s bluff. This venal and vitriolic old man, whose doctoral dissertation peddled Holocaust denial, will not preside over his court in Ramallah forever. The deal now on the table would have given the Palestinians what they have always said they wanted: a state, with a capital in Jerusalem and, more importantly, capital to invest in their towns and transport. The refusal of Abbas even to negotiate with the Americans or Israelis means that he is in danger of becoming irrelevant. Hence the failure of the Western media to question his credentials is all the more disgraceful.

Abbas aspires to be seen on the global stage as another Nelson Mandela, leading his people to their promised land. Through the international BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) movement, he has encouraged young people in the West to compare Israel to South Africa under apartheid. This is a malicious lie, but on campus and elsewhere it has gained traction. Abbas may share his longevity with Mandela, but there the resemblance ends.

Americans remember a celebrated exchange in 1988 between two vice-presidential candidates, Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen. The former, a Republican, pointed out that he had as much experience in Congress as President Kennedy had done when he ran for the White House. Bentsen replied, crushingly: “Senator, I served with a Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you’re no Jack Kennedy.”

Mahmoud Abbas, you’re no Nelson Mandela.