That leaves them flailing as the Trump Administration accuses them of turning their back on negotiations, while Israel becomes increasingly emboldened by US support and its acquiescence to Israeli settlement construction in occupied territory.
"The sun and moon and stars are more aligned against the Palestinians than at any point I can recall," said Aaron David Miller, a fellow at the Washington-based Wilson Centre and a former State Department negotiator under Republican and Democratic administrations. "He's stuck," he said of Abbas. "He's cornered from every conceivable angle."
While international efforts are unlikely to bear fruit, negotiations with the Trump Administration are not an option if Abbas is to survive politically and a return to violence would be a "disaster," Miller said.
The Palestinian cause has slipped down the agenda for Arab countries. Gulf nations, including Saudi Arabia, are more concerned about strategic threats, such as Iran, and are finding their business and security interests increasingly aligned with those of Israel.
Trump, in the meantime, is carrying through on his threat to cut aid to the Palestinians, a State Department official confirmed. The United States informed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency in a letter that Washington will pay only US$60 million of a planned US$125 million installment to the agency. The balance will be "held for future consideration".
Abbas has tied his legacy to achieving a two-state solution through negotiations, calling for Palestinians to walk away from armed conflict against Israel. But he said Trump's "deal of the century" had turned out to be a "slap of the century," reporting that the Palestinians were offered Abu Dis, a suburb of eastern Jerusalem, as an alternative capital to Jerusalem itself. That falls far short of their demand for a return to pre-1967 borders, which would give them control of east Jerusalem.
"It seems Trump's Jerusalem recognition provided Abbas with what he needed, both in Palestinian public opinion and internationally, in order to deflect the US initiative to give birth to a highly constricted Palestinian state, territorially and functionally, without a capital in Jerusalem," said Ofer Zalzberg, an analyst with International Crisis Group.
The council's recommendations, including ending security cooperation and reversing the recognition of Israel, are binding, according to Palestinian officials, although there is no time frame specified.
"He will find a creative way to put it aside," said Kobi Michael, a senior researcher at the Institute for National Security Studies and previously the deputy director general of Israel's ministry of strategic affairs.
The Palestinian Authority relies on Israeli security cooperation, while Palestinians depend on the Israeli economy, with tens of thousands working in Israel. "If they really want to implement the decisions that were made in the council they are taking a risk, because Israel will respond to such an act," Michael said.
There is scepticism that Abbas is willing to take such risks, though the situation he faces is unprecedented and make actions of the 82-year-old leader harder to predict.
"He's trying to appear defiant but being cautious," said Diana Buttu, a former legal adviser for the Palestinian negotiating team and spokeswoman for the PLO. "I think he's hoping for something from Europe, but anyone that follows European politics knows that to get that many countries to agree on a policy is difficult if not impossible."
Abbas is set to meet foreign ministers of the 28-member European Union in Brussels later this month.
"It creates noise and motion but generally achieves very little," said Dan Shapiro, a former US ambassador to Israel, said of Palestinian efforts to internationalise the conflict. "Israel has a wider network of friends internationally, and many, even Arab nations, aren't willing to have this fight for them."
In the end, the speech was "noises and threats," he said, adding that it was delivered in a "coarse and outrageous way". Abbas' comments that Israel was a European colonial project unrelated to Judaism are inconsistent with accepting a two-state deal, Shapiro said. The speech "will deepen the sense on both sides that there is no near-term prospect for diplomacy," he said.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, meanwhile, said the speech had exposed Abbas's true colours. "I think this serves our political goals more than anything else," he said.
Ghassan Khatib, a professor at Birzeit University, said Abbas' contentious comments were a distraction. But Khatib said he hopes there will be greater international urgency in addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict now that it is clear the peace process has broken down and that the United States cannot be its sponsor.
"Either that is possible, or even if we have a period of vacuum, with no process, that would be less harmful than an American process, given the taste of it we've had," he said.
