The Palestinian Authority, which governs parts of the West Bank not under Israeli control, is in financial crisis. Its leaders are finding it increasingly difficult to pay 180,000 government employees, including security forces as well as other civil servants.

This is not a problem that can be swept under the rug. Whatever the criticisms of the Palestinian Authority, and there are many, Israel has increasingly depended on it to manage and keep the peace in a strategically critical swath of territory. If there is ever to be a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, there has to be a competent government to run a Palestinian state and leaders with whom to make a deal.

The authority, established under the 1993 Oslo Accords that were to lead to a permanent peace agreement, was supposed to be that vehicle. But it is in danger of being so weakened that it would be unable to carry out those responsibilities. Its financial woes are not new. A World Bank report in September said a “persistent shortfall in donor funding has exacerbated the P.A.’s increasingly difficult fiscal situation, leaving a financing gap of almost $400 million.” And, in an interview with The Associated Press on Sunday, the Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, the official in charge of the government bureaucracy, said the problems are worsening and the authority is on the “verge of being completely incapacitated.”

There are many causes. After Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, won an upgrade for the status of Palestine as a nonmember observer state at the United Nations General Assembly last fall, Israel retaliated by withholding the $100 million in monthly tax revenues it collects on behalf of the Palestinians. Congress, meanwhile, has been withholding more than $450 million in American aid. Last year, Mr. Fayyad said he hoped to improve the authority’s financial condition by cutting spending and raising taxes on wealthier Palestinians. The tax plan ran into strong protest and the West Bank’s modest economic growth has slowed.