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Mahmoud Abbas is a weak, intransigent, and hostile enemy of Israel. And we'd better not lose him.

The news stories about Palestinian President Abbas' threat to resign usually contain one of these two sentiments: "He's weak, and certainly no partner for peace"; or "there's no one else, so let's not let the perfect be the enemy of the not-even-good."

The correct reading of the situation is to combine those statements. First, to recap: Abbas said last week that he would not stand for re-election in January, after the administration abandoned its push for a complete Israeli settlement freeze, leaving Abbas looking feckless.

The New York Times report this week by Ethan Bronner eschewed understatement and began: "The possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority, Israel's negotiating partner, loomed Monday, as several aides to its president, Mahmoud Abbas, said that he intended to resign and forecast that others would follow."

To be clear, this is most likely a negotiating ploy by Abbas, and an empty threat. But the specter of a Palestinian Authority sans Abbas is worth contemplating. There are many reasons Abbas could properly be considered a failure, but taking Abbas for granted would be an example cutting off the nose of Mideast politics to spite the face of the Palestinian movement and the peace process.

We have more to gain with Abbas than without him, and that should be enough -- for now.

To get a sense of why this is so, let's take a look at a report I filed last year on the results of a study by four authors for the National Bureau of Economic Research, called The Struggle for Palestinian Hearts and Minds: Violence and Public Opinion in the Second Intifada.

The authors -- Esteban Klor, Sami H. Miaari, David A. Jaeger, and M. Daniele Paserman -- used empirical evidence, so their results are a bit more mathematical than most, but as such they build their conclusions on a sturdy foundation of facts.

And the conclusions they present are striking. With regard to the behavioral reactions after a Palestinian fatality at the hands of Israel's military, the "moderate" Fatah party loses some support from the Palestinian public. But, as I wrote at the time, it also found that "as support drains from Fatah, support drains from peace negotiations with Israel."

The report found that the post-fatality Palestinian "radicalization" dissolved completely within 90 days.

Additionally -- and here again I'll quote directly from my story, (emphasis added here) -- "The data also show that although Fatah loses support, the more extreme Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) do not gain those supporters. Rather, the public becomes disaffected with the political process -- in effect, waiting for Fatah to win that support back."

The story continued: "There is also the bidding-war effect. 'When Hamas claims responsibility for Israeli fatalities, public support for it increases while support for the PIJ decreases,' the report states. 'Similarly, when the PIJ claims Israeli fatalities, public support for Hamas decreases. On the other hand, we find no evidence that Israeli fatalities claimed by Hamas affect the relative support for Fatah, nor vice versa'."

The report also found that Fatah's supporters remain loyal to Abbas even as their education improves, while the more educated among Hamas supporters abandon the Islamist terrorist group.

I'll reproduce here again the concluding paragraph of my analysis of the study, because it's important to remember why we in the West support Abbas, and that -- although we may become disillusioned with our policy -- it remains the best choice from Israel's standpoint.

"[The data] would also seem to be an implied endorsement of Fatah, and perhaps a warning against the abandonment of Israeli and Western support for Fatah, as well as provide a strong argument against equating Fatah, and more critically its supporters, with those of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, or any of the other, more extreme, factions," I wrote.

The more support Abbas and Fatah have among the Palestinian population, the less radicalized that population becomes, and the more open to dialogue with Israel they remain, relative to the other Palestinian factions.

We should harbor no fantasy about Abbas being a man of peace, a strong leader, a principled executive, or an honest negotiating partner.

But it would be just as perilous to convince ourselves that Israel would be better off if Abbas rode into the sunset. In fact, that his "threat" could even be construed as a threat is a testament -- admittedly a sad testament -- to his value, such as it is.

There is no credible alternative to Abbas, or to his Fatah party. Hamas is essentially a wholly owned subsidiary of Iran. Its leaders make clear that not only will they never agree to peace with Israel, they strive to be Hezbollah -- the single most dangerous and ruthless terrorist group in the world. Palestinian Islamic Jihad is also an Iranian proxy.

I understand the cringe factor in supporting an execrable worm like Abbas. But, to paraphrase Franklin Roosevelt: He may be an execrable worm, but he's our execrable worm.

Seth Mandel is the managing editor of The Jewish State.