There is growing dissatisfaction among Palestinians with the leadership of President Mahmoud Abbas, who seems powerless to steer the now divided Palestinian territory out of troubled waters. Adding to Abbas' preoccupation – and indeed to Israel's too – is the mounting popularity in the West Bank of the Islamic movement, Hamas.
Having already lost physical control of the Gaza strip to the Islamists, a similar takeover of the West Bank by Hamas would place a stake in the heart of the peace process, opening the door to a new era of violence. The result could be a revival of the uprising, or intifada.
Senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat warned of the possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority if a peace deal with the Israelis was not reached this year: "If we fail to produce an agreement in 2008, we may disappear," said Erekat. "The impact will not be limited to Israel and the Palestinians. Watch the region," he warned.
"People are angry with us, their pessimism and anger is because of our inability to deliver," he said, referring to a recent poll.
On the Israeli side there is also rising public frustration at the government's inability to stop the continued shelling by Hamas and Islamic Jihad of Israeli civilian centers close to the Gaza border. The danger in this case is that the Israeli government may find it needs to respond with overwhelming militarily force even beyond what we have seen in recent months, thus provoking an unpredictable chain reaction, such as tilting the balance in the West Bank in Hamas's favor, and quite possibly igniting the northern front by bringing in Lebanon's Shiite Hezbollah organization into the fight. It's worth remembering both Hamas and Hezbollah are backed by Iran. As Erekat said: "watch the region."
And watching the region is precisely what the U.S. vice president has been doing for the last few weeks – from the area itself – and seeing personally the realities of the occupation on one side, and just as real, the fear and trepidation on the other side.
Peace, as Vice President Dick Cheney pointed out during a stopover in Ramallah on Easter Sunday, will require "painful concessions" by both sides.
"Achieving that vision will require tremendous effort at the negotiating table and painful concessions on both sides," he said, adding: "It also will require a determination to keep those who are committed to violence and who refuse to accept the basic right of the other side to exist."
And if the current Palestinian and Israeli leaderships think that making concessions to reach a peaceful solution is too painful, they need only consider the far more painful alternative.