After much urging from Rice, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas resumed meeting, after a six-week hiatus, and pledged to continue come what may in search of an "historic" framework agreement for the establishment of a Palestinian state.

This appears good news on the face of it, but scratch the surface and you enter the surreal world of Middle East peacemaking. Last week Rice was in Israel, and as well as trying to keep her interlocutors focused on the final issues in that historic agreement – borders, Jerusalem, and refugees – she also chivvied the Israelis into agreeing to reduce the number of roadblocks in the West Bank from 580 to 530. Armed with this victory she left, and the Israelis promptly turned around and announced plans to build 800 new homes in Betar Illit, a West Bank settlement.

The reason for this apparent snub was that the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, a vital member of Olmert's coalition, insisted upon it and threatened to walk if it didn't happen. Shas provides 12 of the 67 seats in the governing coalition out of a total of 120.

Shas is also adamantly opposed to even discussing any division of Jerusalem with the Palestinians as part of a peace settlement. Yet a settlement is inconceivable without some arrangement that gives the Palestinians a formal presence in East Jerusalem. So the coalition pursuing the peace process includes members who reject an essential element of peace.

Abbas' position on the Palestinian side is no stronger. His Fatah party has been kicked out of Gaza by Hamas and his hold on the West Bank is tenuous. Hamas attacks him as a pawn or a patsy of Israel and the Americans and the support he receives from them is an internal liability. He has little room for maneuver. Any action by him that appears as weakness in the face of the Israelis could swing majority support to Hamas in the West Bank as well.

When the George W. Bush administration first took office it turned its back on Middle East peacemaking, saying the parties had to work it out for themselves. They were clearly incapable of that. Critics said the United States had to engage to pressure the parties to the negotiating table. Now the U.S. is doing that with the results we have described and critics are saying the peace process may spark another war.

It is hard to imagine a solution to this intractable problem that does involve significant transformations in the internal political groupings of both Israeli and Palestinian society. There is a limit to what outside pressure can achieve even when it comes from a superpower.