AMMAN, Jordan – The newspapers here in the Hashemite Kingdom have updates on Prime Minister Sharon’s grave condition, each datelined “Occupied Jerusalem.” Jordanian Times columnist Ramzy Baroud laments that the media has been filled with “endearing commentaries, venerating news reports, and glorifying television programs” about Mr. Sharon, demonstrating that absolutely everyone in the world believes that the media is biased against their viewpoint.

But by and large, reaction to Mr. Sharon’s recent massive stroke has been surprisingly quiet among the vast Palestinian population here in Jordan, where an undiminished nationalism spurs them to wear black checkered scarves to distinguish themselves from the red-checkered scarves preferred by native Jordanians.

When Mr. Sharon had his first stroke a few weeks ago, the reaction in the West Bank a few miles to the west was comparable to the Fourth of July, Mardi Gras,and the home team winning the Super Bowl. Masked, AK-47 carrying gunmen handed out candy to children, like some surreal, nightmarish hybrid of Santa Claus and Osama bin Laden.

The 77-year-old, overweight, and extraordinarily stressed Sharon succumbing to a stroke was interpreted by many Palestinian commentators as proof that God is on their side. (Under this airtight logic, if God were not on their side, their foes would be immortal.)

The local Palestinians’ quiet is certainly not respectful, but a resigned sense that not much is likely to change, either with the Palestinian elections later this month or the Israeli elections in late March.

Mr. Sharon’s new party, Kadima, still appears to be on track for a majority; no one really expects a serious deviation from Mr. Sharon’s vision of withdrawing from certain areas of the West Bank and completing the security wall. Palestinian authorities will soon have autonomy on a larger swath of the West Bank, but no one’s hopes are up; Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip has demonstrated that Palestinians’ skills in self-government are as strong as Jack Abramoff’s sense of honesty and integrity.

As New Republic publisher Martin Peretz’s “Mayhem in Gaza” report details, post-withdrawal Gaza has managed to incorporate the corruption of Al Capone’s Chicago, the anarchy of wartime Sarajevo, the widespread embrace of extremism of post-Saddam Fallujah, and the helpless, hopeless incompetence of Marion Barry’s reign as mayor in Washington. Theoretically, it could get worse, but it’s a challenge to imagine how.

This is bad news for those hoping for a “two state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, including the Bush administration. We’re at the point of a one-and-a-half state solution at best. Later this month, the Palestinians will hold elections between Fatah, which has been in power for a decade and proven itself corrupt and largely ineffective in improving the life of the average Palestinian. Their strongest challenger is Hamas, a terrorist group that does some community work on the side. They take care of widows and orphans on the Palestinian side when they’re not out creating widows and orphans on the Israeli side.

If you’re looking for a silver lining, you might find one here in Jordan. If you’re Palestinian, and you’re not interested in the career options of militia gunmen or suicide bomber, Amman has been the place to be. By American standards, the Jordanian economy is sclerotic, corrupt, slow, and inefficient. By the standards of Gaza and the West Bank, the Hashemite Kingdom is Silicon Valley during the dot-com boom.

A walled Israel, a contained threat from Hamas, a cesspool of corruption in the Palestinian territories, and thriving Palestinian workforce in Jordan isn’t exactly a rosy vision, and is far from the hopes of those who have dreamed of a lasting Middle East peace. But it may be as good as it gets for the foreseeable future.

Mr. Geraghty, a contributing editor to National Review, is the author of a book on terrorism and voters that will be published in August 2006 by Simon and Schuster.