President Bush will seek to build on his Annapolis pledge to bring about a Palestinian state before he leaves office with a nine-day trip to the Middle East starting Jan. 8.

One problem is that it will include stops in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt as well as Israel -- his first as president -- and the Palestinian territories, his first ever. Country hopping is virtually incompatible with serious negotiating.

It isn't too late for Mr. Bush to move the ball forward significantly in terms of achieving some measure of peace between the Israelis and Palestinians. This would be in spite of his weak domestic political standing and the linked failure of his war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. President Richard M. Nixon made important progress in normalizing relations with China in the same period that Watergate was evolving.

The situation on the ground between the Israelis and Palestinians has deteriorated, however, since the Annapolis talks in November. The Palestinians have been firing rockets from Gaza into Israel. The Israelis have carried out air strikes in Gaza. Israeli arrests of Palestinians have continued. They hold more than 10,000, including some 40 Palestinian legislators.

The beehive that Mr. Bush will have to grasp, even to seek a temporary peace, includes an offer from Hamas to Israel to discuss a cease-fire, which Israel has rejected. Hamas also proposed talks to Fatah, the Palestinian party headed by President Mahmoud Abbas which Hamas defeated at the polls last year and in combat in June. Mr. Abbas refused the Hamas offer, insisting as an unreasonable precondition that Hamas give up power in Gaza.

Making Mr. Bush's assignment even more difficult is action being taken by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's government. It intends to build 740 new Israeli residences in Jerusalem and the West Bank on land Israel annexed after the 1967 war.

The United States is out on a limb all by itself on this one. After Annapolis the administration withdrew, at Israel's request, a proposed U.N. Security Council resolution in support of the Annapolis effort. The Israelis did not want U.N. involvement in the negotiations, nor that of the other previous Quartet partners, the European Union and Russia.

That leaves the United States and Mr. Bush on the hook in this difficult situation. It will present him a real challenge if he has the stomach for it.