As Israel frets about the lifting of sanctions on Iran and its troubled relations with the European Union, on the other side of the Middle East conflict - the Palestinians - an uneasy quiet has fallen that speaks of ideas running out.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, elected to a four-year term 11 years ago this month, rarely appears in public. His pledge to hold a congress of his Fatah party to elect new leaders has repeatedly been put off. Factionalism is growing. Abbas has no clear successor.
His efforts to raise Palestine’s profile on the world stage, principally by joining the International Criminal Court last June, appear to have lost momentum. ICC prosecutors have so far declined to open any criminal investigation, despite the Palestinians handing over heaps of evidence.
Hopes that the French would usher through a new UN resolution on Palestinian statehood have not come to fruition, even if discussion on the subject continues.
Faced with such an array of problems, the response from the Palestinian leadership has been to resort to an age-old solution: to call for an international conference. Political analysts find themselves aggrieved at the lack of direction.
Fading prospects
Common Palestinians are not alone in his sense of despair. European diplomats who liaise with the Palestinians have taken to rolling their eyes when asked how they see the situation unfolding.
Some mid-level Palestinian officials are open about their frustrations and their concerns not only about divisions between Fatah and the Islamist group Hamas in Gaza, but splits within Fatah itself, which could tear Palestinian politics asunder.
The political sclerosis comes at a time of stepped up Palestinian-Israeli violence, with 25 Israelis and a US citizen killed in stabbings, shootings and car rammings over the past four months. In the same period, 148 Palestinians, most of them attackers, have been killed by Israeli forces.