The “moderate” Mahmoud Abbas announced at a rally in Beirut on Thursday that “all Palestinians should have the right to return home,” rejecting the idea that 400,000 Palestinians living in Lebanon–mostly in refugee camps since 1948, with no citizenship and with such severe legal restrictions on their rights that the word “apartheid” may be viewed as a compliment by comparison–might be “forced” to permanently stay in Lebanon.

We can imagine the kind of response this statement would get from those in the West who wish to see a peace deal between Abbas and Israel at all costs: that he was pandering to the local Palestinian audience; that he was pandering to the Lebanese government, who always wished the Palestinians would go away; that he was merely airing established Palestinian official views, two days after Ehud Olmert allegedly offered him a plan to resettle refugees in Lebanon. That he’s imperfect but that he’s the best we’ve got.

What those who rush to the defense of Abbas forget is the following. If this is the best we can get out of a Palestinian leader; if what may come after him is infinitely worse; if we have to understand his limits and constraints in the public sphere on such a delicate issue; if all of this is reasonable and must be accepted–then it’s not the best we’ve got. It’s that we’ve got nothing at all.