Who would be George Mitchell? As the US peace envoy wearily boarded a plane for Washington after yet another fruitless round of shuttle diplomacy in the Middle East, two of the key players in the process were hurling abuse at each other between the West Bank and Damascus. If the scenario were not so tragic, it would be a farce. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas ,and the Hamas leader, Khaled Meshaal, traded insults in separate televised speeches, leaving Mr Mitchell looking like a travelling salesman trying in vain to sell hair-restorer to two bald men fighting over a comb. The Palestinian people deserve better than this.

Ostensibly, the reason for the latest spat is the decision by Mr Abbas’s government, under pressure from the US and Israel, to agree to defer until March a UN vote on the Goldstone report on war crimes in Gaza. In his speech on Sunday Mr Abbas performed a swift about-turn, calling for the report to be discussed by the UN Human Rights Council, but it was a stumbling performance, and he succeeded only in digging a bigger hole for himself.

Now, any concession by Israel will be portrayed by Mr Abbas’s enemies as a quid pro quo for denying justice to the people of Gaza; that would be unfair and untrue, but it would have enough traction to stick. In any case, the Goldstone report is a red herring: red with the blood of innocent Gazans, certainly, but a distraction nonetheless. The time will come for Israel to be held to account for the atrocities it committed in Gaza (and Hamas, too, for its own wrongdoings there; something Mr Meshaal conveniently forgets when he calls for swift action on Goldstone), but that time is not now. It is hard to see how taking Israelis to the International Criminal Court would advance a peace process that is already in a parlous state.

Meanwhile, Mr Abbas is a mortally wounded political beast, and Mr Meshaal is a predator who smells blood (even from 220km away in Damascus). In his own speech, an hour after Mr Abbas had concluded, he went for the jugular. Mr Meshaal denounced his rival for “saving Israel”, pulled the rug from under the Egyptian-brokered reconciliation agreement between Hamas and Fatah scheduled for this month, and finally, speaking directly to West Bank Palestinians, told them that Hamas had no issue with Fatah – only with the “clan” who led them.

It was a formidable display of oratory, a bravura performance, as naked a grab for power as you will see – and ultimately futile. The continued subjugation of the Palestinian people is, above all, a failure of leadership: in Washington, at the United Nations, in Israel, in the Arab world – and chiefly in the Palestinian Territories themselves. In survey after survey, the Palestinians have said that they care about settlements and Israel’s land grab; about their economic prospects; about health and education. But more than all those issues put together, they care about unity. And they are crying out for leaders to provide it.

Mr Abbas’s political career is probably over; far from winning next year’s elections, he may not even be nominated. Mr Meshaal has the personal charisma to lead the Palestinians, but only down a dead-end street. Nelson Mandela led his people to freedom from a prison cell, but despite his undoubted attributes Marwan Barghouti is no Nelson Mandela. From somewhere within their community the Palestinians need to find a leader with the strength, integrity and credibility to lead them to statehood. And time is running out.