Tense is an understatement to describe Jerusalem these days. You walk the streets in the Arab quarter waiting for something to happen. The crowds, the parked cars, the narrow thoroughfares, the lilting music blaring from the shop fronts, all contribute to the feeling of enclosure and claustrophobia.
On the fringe, young Israeli conscripts stand guard. They are chatting among themselves but, as young Palestinian men and boys congregate close by, the chatting stops and the soldiers form a line, looking pale and nervous despite the formidable weapons they carry.
In a cafe on the Jewish side of town, the props are different but the tension is the same. The music this time is REM, the customers are better nourished and attired. You could be in Los Angeles or Greenwich Village, except car bombs have gone off within a quarter-mile of where you sit. Here, as elsewhere in the Holy City, you get that familiar underlying chill of fear.
The sense of political stalemate and uncertainty in the air does not help. In the prime ministerial election, Ariel Sharon buried Ehud Barak in an avalanche of votes but Sharon's Likud Party has only one-sixth of the seats in the Israeli parliament, or Knesset.
To set up a government, Mr Sharon needs to form alliances. Analysts say he could gain a bare majority with the support of other right-wing groupings but it wouldn't last. Consequently, he is engaged in talks with Mr Barak and the Labour Party in the hope of forming a national unity government.
The Knesset is a vibrant but fractious institution with a multiplicity of small parties. Its meetings make the average Dail sitting look like a Sunday service. You wonder how Mr Barak ever hoped to sell his ambitious peace plan in a fissiparous society like Israel where, even more than in Ireland, the first item on the agenda often seems to be the split.
Nevertheless, insiders say a deal with the Palestinians was very close. We will never know now if it could have been made to stick. Mr Barak led from the front - sometimes too far in front - and would have had difficulty bringing his people with him. Mr Arafat has a better understanding of the need to stay close to your base of support, but the masses around him are in revolt and "days of rage" are very much the norm.
Where will it all end? A seasoned Israeli analyst predicted a national unity government would emerge from the Sharon-Barak talks. Having proclaimed his intention last week to quit politics, Mr Barak is now being mentioned in the media as a potential defence minister.
Veteran statesman Mr Shimon Peres, marginalised in the Barak administration, could just possibly make a remarkable comeback to the world stage as foreign minister.
Even if Mr Sharon has to form an administration without Labour support initially, he may leave some vacant seats at the cabinet table for when it "comes around". A national unity government of Likud hawks and the right wing part of Labour would displease elements on the Labour left, which includes some of the more ardent supporters of the peace process.
Meanwhile, after four months of the Intifada, or uprising, the Palestinian economy is at a very low ebb. Normally some 120,000 Palestinian workers come into Israel proper from the territories each working day, for construction and other forms of manual labour. Their wages sustain some one million people, including spouses, grandparents and children, not to mention local traders. Since the uprising began, that flow of money has been reduced to a trickle as most of them are unable to get past Israeli army checkpoints.
At the same time, their homerule administration, the Palestinian Authority, is reported to be virtually bankrupt. Were it not for loans from the EU and others, economic collapse would have taken place in the territories already. As it is, Palestinian families are experiencing hardship which shows no immediate sign of abating.
It was a regrettable necessity that the new US administration had to be given time to "get its feet under the table". However, the new US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, is due in Jerusalem before the end of the month to meet government and political leaders throughout the region.
Although nobody now speaks of "the Clinton plan", and the Bush administration is anxious to put its own stamp on the situation, perhaps some of the ideas put forward, as well as the progress made in the last days of the previous US administration, can still be built upon.
Mr Dennis Ross, chief negotiator under Mr Clinton, has acknowledged in an article for the New York Times that Mr Sharon will not be willing to take the same risks for peace as his predecessor and that Mr Arafat's room for manoeuvre is limited. However, that does not mean nothing can be done. "In the coming months, both sides and the United States should focus on defusing the conflict and building a bridge to peaceful co-existence," he wrote.
OLDER readers will recall that "peaceful co-existence" was a key phrase during the Cold War era which, if memory serves, was coined by the Soviet side. Nevertheless, Mr Ross's point stands: neither side has anything to gain from a continuation of the violence and confrontation. He urges a limited agreement, less sweeping than what Mr Barak had sought and perhaps more in tune with Mr Sharon's idea of advancing in gradual steps, rather than trying to settle everything at once.
Not far from where I am writing this, a shop window displays the ubiquitous poster of a Palestinian child cowering under heavy fire a few minutes before he was shot dead in the latest Intifada.
Although Israeli casualties have been running at about one-seventh the rate among Palestinians, they too have been mostly young people who, like the Palestinian child, had their lives in front of them and could have made a constructive contribution to a peaceful Middle East instead of becoming a statistic on a list and a hole in their parents' hearts.
In the Cold War, it was not mutual love but mutually assured destruction which forced the two sides to agree a modus vivendi. What the Middle East needs most of all now is a long period of tranquillity. If not a permanent peace, then at least peace and quiet for now.