RAMALLAH, West Bank ? After just two days on the job, Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia reportedly has told President Yasser Arafat he would like to quit.

As hopes of building a Palestinian government grew slimmer Thursday, another suicide bomber attacked Israeli soldiers in the West Bank. The bomber killed himself and injured two Israeli soldiers and a Palestinian at a checkpoint in Tulkarm.

Qureia was supposed to present his emergency Cabinet to the parliament for formal approval Thursday, but ended up calling off the ceremony after clashing backstage with Arafat over control of the security forces — a continuing power struggle in Palestinian attempts to forge a government.

Diplomats and journalists who packed Arafat’s sweltering compound were told to go home.

The most optimistic Palestinians called Thursday’s meltdown a raucous eruption of unfamiliar democracy.

Others were more blunt. Lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi said Palestinians had become mired in a serious constitutional crisis.

“This is very dangerous,” Ashrawi said, walking briskly from the compound. “It’s one thing when we are attacked from the outside, but now we are fighting with ourselves.”

Palestinians don’t have much time to waste. They need to create a functioning prime minister and Cabinet to satisfy international mediators who are urging them and the Israelis to resume negotiations on the so-called “road map” plan for Israeli security and Palestinian statehood. Now that peace talks have petered out and bloodshed is mounting, Palestinian attempts at self-rule are urgent.

The only steady leader is Arafat, an ailing pariah under Israeli threat of deportation. Arafat’s stomach and midsection have been bloating visibly beneath his trademark fatigues in recent days, while his face draws gaunt and white.

Arafat aides dismiss his unmistakable physical deterioration as symptoms of flu or bleeding ulcers, but rumors — and contradictory news reports — insist that Arafat is sicker than the Palestinian leadership wants to admit.