IF THE papers al-Jazeera, the Qatari-based news channel, leaked about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations were intended to spark another popular uprising, their mole will have been disappointed. While Arab capitals quiver from anti-regime protests, there have been no demonstrations against the West Bank's Palestinian rulers.

Part of the reason is that despite al-Jazeera's hype, the expose left many West Bankers underwhelmed. "It's what most imagined," says Samir Awad, a Palestinian political scientist. Positions hacked out a decade ago on Jerusalem, borders and refugees were largely regurgitated. Palestinian negotiators did show more creativity in considering international oversight of that most contested site, Jerusalem's old city compound, which Muslims consider their third holiest shrine and Jews their holiest. But their readiness to compromise only highlighted that Israel—not they—were the deal breakers. And anyway, in an era when peace talks are in abeyance such compromises seem academic.

Palestinian leaders have also had some success blaming the messenger, not the message. Yasser Abed Rabbo, a senior official, accused the Emir of Qatar, a small Gulf state with bigger pretensions, of striking back via his satellite channel, al-Jazeera, after the Ramallah government spurned his offer to mediate a reconciliation deal with Hamas, the Islamist movement ruling Palestine's other half in Gaza.

But perhaps the foremost reason for the quiet is the West Bank's changed political climate. Once the most politicised people in the Arab world, Palestinians have been rendered amongst their most docile since Salam Fayyad, a World Bank official, was installed as the Palestinian Authority's prime minister in 2007. Buffeted by Western funding and diplomatic support, the winds of change sweeping the West Bank have seen the Palestinian parliament muzzled, elections cancelled, and political parties whither. The most prominent signs of institution-building are the lugubrious new concrete fortresses of the security forces looming over Palestinian city centres.

The campaign which the PA initially launched against Hamas has broadened to encompass dissenters of all hues. Students at the shiny new campus of Nablus' Najah University, once a hive of activism, snigger when asked about politics, and once publicity-seeking academics shy from giving their name, or even interviews. One speaks of empty seats marking where students have disappeared. Lecturers speaking out of line have been detained too; one says he was beaten. “Students film us on mobile phones,” says a reformed lecturer. “There's not much we can do. It's how students finance their studies.” Powerless and estranged, a striking number of Palestinians say they no longer bother to tune into news bulletins.

But Palestinian leaders can ill-afford to take their rule for granted. This is a conflict which has regularly sprung surprises. Al-Jazeera's mockery of Palestinian negotiators, though overplayed, taps into mounting frustration that their leaders are more answerable to Israel and their Western patrons than their subjects. More than ever, Palestinians abroad—not only Hamas—are hailing their rule as illegitimate and unrepresentative. “The Palestinian Authority was only supposed to last five years,” says Karma Nabulsi, a UK-based Palestinian academic, referring to the 1995 Israeli-Palestinian interim agreement intended to pave the way for statehood.

The frustration is compounded by the fact that the Palestinian negotiators have so little to show for their efforts. Barack Obama's deadline for statehood is barely seven months away with scant sign it will come to fruition. “How can it happen when even Israel's most moderate government refused our most generous concessions,” says Hani al-Masri, a Palestinian commentator. Friendly banter with Israelis that might seem acceptable when the two sides are approaching a deal smacks of a sell-out when juggernauts loaded with pre-assembled homes for more Jewish settlers clog their roads.

Instead of statehood, many feel they got a security regime checking their long-cherished aspirations for self-determination. Hamas, which in 2006 endorsed President Mahmoud Abbas's negotiations with Israel, this week formally withdrew its backing. Morale amongst Palestinian security forces, too, is also said to be sliding. Coordinating with Israel seems fine when the reward is a state; it looks distinctly less attractive when policemen are cast as quislings upholding Israel's occupation.

Some Palestinian officials in Ramallah have responded by trying to deflect blame for the despair onto colleagues, amidst intensifying infighting. Mr Fayyad's aides argue that while he fulfilled his promise to get the West Bank ready for statehood, it was Mr Abbas's task to deliver the state. But others wonder whether the regime itself, rather than its individuals, is at fault. Bereft of both a state and freedom, an increasing number speak of abandoning the hope of a separate Palestinian state, and dreaming of a halcyon single democratic state embracing Israel instead.