I often criticize the coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from the New York Times, and especially Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren. But credit where it’s due: in an otherwise silly “news analysis” about the Palestinians’ strategy of getting international organizations to pretend the territories are a full-fledged state, Rudoren hits on a crucial aspect to the Palestinian farce. In the process, she sheds some light on PA head Mahmoud Abbas’s true intentions.

The story, headlined “Palestinians Seen Gaining Momentum in Quest for Statehood,” mostly misses the point, as usual. The truth is that the Palestinians could have had a state already–not only in the course of Israel’s existence but several times since 2000 alone–and turned it down. They were also the ones to blow up the last series of peace talks. So any story that takes the idea that the Palestinians are on a “quest for statehood” at face value is showing its bias right off the bat.

What the Palestinians are doing, instead, is trying to join international organizations as a way to get the world to increase its pressure on Israel to retreat to the nonexistent borders of the pre-June 1967 lines. This is not a quest for statehood; it’s just another way to take advantage of the anti-Israel mood of much of the world. Rudoren writes:

When the Palestinians sought statehood at the United Nations in 2011, it was widely dismissed as a symbolic gambit to skirt negotiations with Israel and Washington’s influence over the long-running conflict. But the Palestinians have begun to translate a series of such symbolic steps, culminating in last week’s move to join the International Criminal Court, into a strategy that has begun to create pressure on Israel.

While many prominent Israelis have called for unilateral action to set the country’s borders, it is Palestinians who have gained political momentum with moves made outside of negotiations. The Palestinians are, in effect, establishing a legal state. International recognition, by 135 countries and counting, is what Palestinians are betting could eventually force changes on the ground — without their leaders having to make the concessions or assurances they have long avoided.

That bit about the Palestinians “establishing a legal state” is absurd. There is an operative definition in international law of a state. The Palestinian territories do not yet meet that definition. Additionally, as the Montevideo Convention plainly states: “The political existence of the state is independent of recognition by the other states.”

The Times story is thus far too credulous toward the Palestinians, and sets the “analysis” off immediately in the wrong direction. But somewhere along the line it finds its way back to reality long enough to make clear what Abbas’s gambit is all about:

There is also a sense that Mr. Abbas could benefit if the Palestinians’ unilateral approach bolsters Mr. Netanyahu and other conservatives in the upcoming Israeli elections. Some analysts say his center-left opponents, more clearly committed to the two-state solution, would be more palatable to Europe and force the Palestinians back to negotiations.

The rest of the story is just noise. This is the point. Abbas is so opposed to peace with Israel that even his cheerleaders at the Times point out that he actually benefits from any move that pushes the two sides farther apart. Once upon a time, commentators scolded Israel for supposedly elevating Palestinian rejectionists and extremists. But now by their own account Abbas is the Palestinian extremist. He is the one who benefits from any development that prevents peace.

Of course, the Times is probably overstating any prospective change in Israeli foreign policy, another of the Western media’s hobbyhorses. Even if Netanyahu’s “center-left” opponents win the election, they would struggle to form a governing coalition because of the simple fact that Netanyahu is a centrist in the modern Israeli political sphere. If any party other than Likud won the election, they would have to form a coalition with parties to their right. Netanyahu was the one who brought in Labor when he formed a governing coalition in 2009 and tried to get Kadima in as well. He then brought in Livni in his second term and let her run peace talks, despite the fact that she only won a few seats in the Knesset.

Indeed, a Likud-led government that lets peace processers like Livni lead negotiations is basically the ideal government from the perspective of those who support the two-state solution. It mutes some of the opposition from the right while putting a dedicated peacenik in the driver’s seat, in effect letting the left have a say in important matters of state even though they weren’t elected to do so. It does a pretty good job of approaching a consensus.

Could the left have such a free hand in a weak, partisan coalition, or in a coalition that is stronger but depends on the right to stay afloat? Doubtful. But Abbas doesn’t even want to take the chance. And until he does, all talk of a Palestinian “quest for statehood” merely feeds Abbas’s appetite to prevent it.