In the language of sport the nomination of Mr Ahmed Korei as prime minister of the Palestinian Authority has all the qualities of a "hospital pass". "May God assist you with this disaster," the Palestinian Authority president, Mr Yasser Arafat, is said to have to have told him.
Mr Korei, currently speaker of the National Assembly, a moderate, well-regarded leader, will inherit all the problems that faced the honourable Mr Mahmoud Abbas ahead of his short term in the job, but even less of the political goodwill. How long Mr Korei will be able to survive in the no-man's land between the two great intransigents - Mr Arafat and Israel's Prime Minister, Mr Ariel Sharon - will depend entirely on whether what many see as the terminally stalled "road map" can be given a new lease of life. The prospects do not look good.
Instead of talk in Tel Aviv about finding new ways to engage with the supporters of peace in the Palestinian camp, there have been renewed calls from inside the cabinet for the expulsion of Mr Arafat from Palestine. Mr Sharon has made clear that selective assassinations of Hamas leaders will continue. Both policies would intensify the conflict.
On the other hand, Mr Arafat's own refusal to remove the constitutional ambiguities which allow him to retain partial control of the authority's security services only serves to confirm hawkish Israeli claims of bad faith on his part. His personally ambiguous relationship with those favouring the armed struggle also gave no cover to Mr Abbas from within his own community against charges that he was an Israeli collaborator.
Six months' work has apparently been to no avail. But in the stop-go politics of the Middle East peace process the failure of the internationally backed "road map" initiative will surprise none but the most wildly optimistic. The delicate mechanism, meant to lead by 2005 to the establishment of a Palestinian state, was based on an initial mutual exchange of confidence-building measures, above all on good will. Although the scarcely radical package was endorsed by the EU, UN, Russia, and moderate Arab states as a means of jump-starting the peace process, US engagement was never more than token. Unable, and many would say unwilling, to establish itself as an honest broker the US never applied pressure equally to both sides. Breakdown was inevitable. The promising achievement by Mr Abbas in securing a fragile ceasefire from the militants was never seriously reciprocated by the Israelis and the Palestinian leader was never able to demonstrate the fruits of a moderate policy.
Mr Korei, like Mr Abbas one of the key negotiators of Oslo, yesterday spoke of preconditions before he would formally accept the job. He wants unspecified commitments from the EU and the US, and Israeli promises to demilitarise the Occupied Territories. The problem is that the Europeans have no clout, the Americans, elections looming, and the Israelis, the whip hand. Mr Korei has few cards of his own. These are bleak times, indeed.