Abir Dandis, the mother of the two girls who were murdered in the Negev town of Al-Fura’a last week, couldn't find a police officer to listen to her warnings, neither in Arad nor in Ma’ale Adumim. Both police stations operate in areas where Israel wants to gather the Bedouin into permanent communities, against their will, in order to clear more land for Jewish communities. The dismissive treatment Dandis received shows how the Bedouin are considered simply to be lawbreakers by their very nature. But as a resident of the West Bank asking for help for her daughters, whose father was Israeli, Dandis faced the legal-bureaucratic maze created by the Oslo Accords.

The Palestinian police is not allowed to arrest Israeli civilians. It must hand suspects over to the Israel Police. The Palestinian police complain that in cases of Israelis suspected of committing crimes against Palestinian residents, the Israel Police tend not to investigate or prosecute them.

In addition, the town of Al-Azaria, where Dandis lives, is in Area B, under Palestinian civilian authority and Israeli security authority. According to the testimony of Palestinian residents, neither the IDF nor the Israel Police has any interest in internal Palestinian crime even though they have both the authority and the obligation to act in Area B.

The Palestinian police are limited in what it can do in Area B. Bringing in reinforcements or carrying weapons in emergency situations requires coordination with, and obtaining permission from, the IDF. If Dandis fears that the man who murdered her daughters is going to attack her as well, she has plenty of reason to fear that she will not receive appropriate, immediate police protection from either the Israelis or the Palestinians.

Dandis told Jack Khoury of Haaretz that the Ma’ale Adumim police referred her to the Palestinian Civil Affairs Coordination and Liaison Committee. Theoretically, this committee (which is subordinate to the Civil Affairs Ministry) is the logical place to go for such matters. Its parallel agency in Israel is the Civilian Liaison Committee (which is part of the Coordination and Liaison Administration - a part of the Civil Administration under the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories).

In their meetings, they are supposed to discuss matters such as settlers’ complaints about the high volume of the loudspeakers at mosques or Palestinians’ complaints about attacks by settlers. But the Palestinians see the Liaison Committee as a place to submit requests for permission to travel to Israel, and get the impression that its clerks do not have much power when faced with their Israeli counterparts. In any case, the coordination process is cumbersome and long.

The Palestinian police has a family welfare unit, and activists in Palestinian women’s organizations say that in recent years, its performance has improved. But, as stated, it has no authority over Israeli civilians and residents. Several non-governmental women’s groups also operate in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem, and women in similar situations approach them for help. The manager of one such organization told Haaretz that Dandis also fell victim to this confusing duplication of procedures and laws. Had Dandis approached her, she said, she would have referred her to Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, which has expertise in navigating Israel’s laws and authorities.

John Kerry revealed his long-awaited plan for peace in the Middle East on Sunday, hinging on a $4bn (£2.6bn) investment in the Palestinian private sector.

The US secretary of state, speaking at the World Economic Forum on the Jordanian shores of the Dead Sea, told an audience including Israeli president Shimon Peres and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas that an independent Palestinian economy is essential to achieving a sustainable peace.

Speaking under the conference banner "Breaking the Impasse", Kerry announced a plan that he promised would be "bigger, bolder and more ambitious" than anything since the Oslo accords, more than 20 years ago.

Tony Blair is to lead a group of private sector leaders in devising a plan to release the Palestinian economy from its dependence on international donors. The initial findings of Blair's taskforce, Kerry boasted, were "stunning", predicting a 50% increase in Palestinian GDP over three years, a cut of two-thirds in unemployment rates and almost double the Palestinian median wage. Currently, 40% of the Palestinian economy is supplied by donor aid.

Kerry assured Abbas that the economic plan was not a substitute for a political solution, which remains the US's "top priority".

Peres, who had taken the stage just minutes before, also issued a personal plea to his Palestinian counterpart to return to the negotiations.

"Let me say to my dear friend President Abbas," Peres said, "Should we really dance around the table? Lets sit together. You'll be surprised how much can be achieved in open, direct and organised meetings."

Thick locks hug the front gates of shuttered shops, now covered in graffiti and dust from lack of use. Only a handful of customers pass along the dimly lit road, sometimes stopping to check the ripeness of fruits and vegetables, or ordering meat in near-empty butcher shops.

“All the shops are closed. I’m the only one open. This used to be the best place,” said 64-year-old Mustafa Sunocret, selling vegetables out of a small storefront in the marketplace near his family’s home in the Muslim quarter of Jerusalem’s Old City.

Amidst the brightly coloured scarves, clothes and carpets, ceramic pottery and religious souvenirs filling the shops of Jerusalem’s historic Old City, Palestinian merchants are struggling to keep their businesses alive.

Faced with worsening health problems, Sunocret told IPS that he cannot work outside of the Old City, even as the cost of maintaining his shop, with high electricity, water and municipal tax bills to pay, weighs on him.

“I only have this shop,” he said. “There is no other work. I’m tired.”

Abed Ajloni, the owner of an antiques shop in the Old City, owes the Jerusalem municipality 250,000 Israeli shekels (68,300 U.S. dollars) in taxes. He told IPS that almost every day, the city’s tax collectors come into the Old City, accompanied by Israeli police and soldiers, to pressure people there to pay.

“It feels like they’re coming again to occupy the city, with the soldiers and police,” Ajloni, who has owned the same shop for 35 years, told IPS. “But where can I go? What can I do? All my life I was in this place.”

He added, “Does Jerusalem belong to us, or to someone else? Who’s responsible for Jerusalem? Who?”

Illegal annexation

Israel occupied East Jerusalem, including the Old City, in 1967. In July 1980, it passed a law stating that “Jerusalem, complete and united, is the capital of Israel”. But Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem and subsequent application of Israeli laws over the entire city remain unrecognised by the international community.

Under international law, East Jerusalem is considered occupied territory – along with the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Syrian Golan Heights – and Palestinian residents of the city are protected under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Jerusalem has historically been the economic, political and cultural centre of life for the entire Palestinian population. But after decades languishing under destructive Israeli policies meant to isolate the city from the rest of the Occupied Territories and a lack of municipal services and investment, East Jerusalem has slipped into a state of poverty and neglect.

“After some 45 years of occupation, Arab Jerusalemites suffer from political and cultural schizophrenia, simultaneously connected with and isolated from their two hinterlands: Ramallah and the West Bank to their east, West Jerusalem and Israel to the west,” the International Crisis Group recently wrote.

Israeli restrictions on planning and building, home demolitions, lack of investment in education and jobs, construction of an eight-foot-high separation barrier between and around Palestinian neighbourhoods and the creation of a permit system to enter Jerusalem have all contributed to the city’s isolation.

Formal Palestinian political groups have also been banned from the city, and between 2001-2009, Israel closed an estimated 26 organisations, including the former Palestinian Liberation Organisation headquarters in Jerusalem, the Orient House and the Jerusalem Chamber of Commerce.

Extreme poverty

Israel’s policies have also led to higher prices for basic goods and services and forced many Palestinian business owners to close shop and move to Ramallah or other Palestinian neighbourhoods on the other side of the wall. Many Palestinian Jerusalemites also prefer to do their shopping in the West Bank, or in West Jerusalem, where prices are lower.

While Palestinians constitute 39 percent of the city’s population today, almost 80 percent of East Jerusalem residents, including 85 percent of children, live below the poverty line.

“How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t control your resources? How could you develop [an] economy if you don’t have any control of your borders?” said Zakaria Odeh, director of the Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem, of “this kind of fragmentation, checkpoints, closure”.

“Without freedom of movement of goods and human beings, how could you develop an economy?” he asked.

“You can’t talk about independent economy in Jerusalem or the West Bank or in all of Palestine without a political solution. We don’t have a Palestinian economy; we have economic activities. That’s all we have,” Odeh told IPS.

Israel’s separation barrier alone, according to a new report by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTD), has caused a direct loss of over one billion dollars to Palestinians in Jerusalem, and continues to incur 200 million dollars per year in lost opportunities.

Israel’s severing and control over the Jerusalem-Jericho road – the historical trade route that connected Jerusalem to the rest of the West Bank and Middle East – has also contributed to the city’s economic downturn.

Separation of Jerusalem from West Bank

Before the First Intifada (Arabic for “uprising”) began in the late 1980s, East Jerusalem contributed approximately 14 to 15 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) in the Occupied Palestinian territories (OPT). By 2000, that number had dropped to less than eight percent; in 2010, the East Jerusalem economy, compared to the rest of the OPT, was estimated at only seven percent.

“Economic separation resulted in the contraction in the relative size of the East Jerusalem economy, its detachment from the remaining OPT and the gradual redirection of East Jerusalem employment towards the Israeli labour market,” the U.N. report found.

Decades ago, Israel adopted a policy to maintain a so-called “demographic balance” in Jerusalem and attempt to limit Palestinian residents of the city to 26.5 percent or less of the total population.

To maintain this composition, Israel built numerous Jewish-Israeli settlements inside and in a ring around Jerusalem and changed the municipal boundaries to encompass Jewish neighbourhoods while excluding Palestinian ones.

It is now estimated that 90,000 Palestinians holding Jerusalem residency rights live on the other side of the separation barrier and must cross through Israeli checkpoints in order to reach Jerusalem for school, medical treatment, work, and other services.

“Israel is using all kinds of tools to push the Palestinians to leave; sometimes they are visible, and sometimes invisible tools,” explained Ziad al-Hammouri, director of the Jerusalem Centre for Social and Economic Rights (JCSER).

Al-Hammouri told IPS that at least 25 percent of the 1,000 Palestinian shops in the Old City were closed in recent years as a result of high municipal taxes and a lack of customers. “Taxation is an invisible tool…as dangerous as revoking ID cards and demolishing houses,” he said. “Israel will use this as pressure and as a tool in the future to confiscate these shops and properties.”

PROLOGUE:

Palestinian resistance to the Zionist project started before the Basle Program and before the Balfour Declaration. The first signs of Palestinian resistance were a direct and spontaneous reaction to the efforts of the pioneer Zionist settlers to dispossess and displace the Arab fellahin, which were provocative and led to violent confrontations.

The Muslim-Christian Association appeared in Jaffa and Jerusalem in 1918 as a result of the anti-Zionist awakening following the Balfour Declaration. It was composed of traditional representatives of the leading families and religious community and soon became a countrywide network with its headquarters in Jerusalem.

The Arab Executive was elected at the 3rd National Congress in Haifa in December 1920 to turn the Muslim-Christian Associations into a permanent body to defend the Palestinian cause. The Arab Executive led the Palestinian political movement until 1935 and was replaced by an Arab Higher Committee (AHC) that was formed in 1936.

In September 1948, the AHC announced the establishment of an all-Palestine government in Gaza, which was later moved to Cairo and proved to be a complete failure. It was helpless and powerless reflecting the loss and the aimlessness of the Palestinians who did not know what to do.

After a decade during which all hopes were dashed, a number of Palestinian movements advocating armed struggle to restore Palestinian rights began to emerge.

Following the outbreak of the Intifada, a new Palestinian faction entered the struggle: HAMAS. Hamas was a militant Muslim movement. Members of the Muslim Brotherhood led by Sheikh Ahmad Yassin founded it in 1987. It advocated a Holy War and called for an Islamic state in Palestine. Hamas did not join the PLO.

In January 1964, Egypt proposed an independent Palestinian entity: the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) led by Ahmad al Shukairy. Shukairy held a meeting in Jerusalem on May 1964, which was attended by 422 Palestinian national figures. The meeting laid down the structure of the Palestine National Council (PNC), the PLO Executive Committee, the National Fund and the Palestine Liberation Army (PLA) as well as approving a Palestinian National Covenant and Basic Law.

On 24 December 1967, Shukairy resigned as chairman of the PLO and FATAH took over. Yasser Arafat became the chairman.

The growing influence of the Palestinian factions in Amman represented a threat to King Hussein and led to a bloody operation by the Jordanian army against the Palestinians in September 1970 (Black September). As a result, the Palestinian factions were expelled from Jordan and moved to Lebanon.

The PLO was recognized by the U.N. General Assembly on 14 October 1974 and gained the status of observership.

On 23 October 1974, the Arab Summit meeting, held in Rabat, Morocco, declared the PLO as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people.

The PLO and all the Palestinian factions were finally forced out of Lebanon as a result of the Israeli invasion in 1982 and moved to Tunis.

In November 1988, the PNC formally ratified a two-state settlement of the conflict. In December 1988, the PLO announced in Geneva its recognition of Israel’s right to exist and its renunciation of ‘terrorism’. This was the start for a path that led to Oslo.

FROM LIBERATION TO STRANGULATION:

1967: The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) was founded.

1968, March: Israel attacked the village of Karama on the East Bank of the Jordan and faced a heroic stand, which gave the PLO a boost and increased its influence.

1968, July: The Palestinian National Charter was adopted by the Palestine National Council held during the period 1-17 July 1968. Article 1 of the Charter stated, “Palestine is the homeland of the Arab Palestinian people; it is an indivisible part of the Arab homeland, and the Palestinian people are an integral part of the Arab nation”. Article 2 stated, “Palestine, with the boundaries it had during the British Mandate, is an indivisible territorial unit”. Article 9 of the Charter stated, “Armed struggle is the only way to liberate Palestine. This is the overall strategy, not merely a tactical phase…”

1969: The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) was founded.

1970, 17 September: The PLO was expelled from Jordan and moved to Lebanon.

1973, January: The PNC opposed “proposals for entities and for the establishment of a Palestinian state in part of the territory of Palestine and to resist these proposals through armed struggle and through mass political conflict linked with it”.

1973, August: A Palestinian National Front (PNF) was formed by numerous West Bank Palestinian groups and representatives of trades unions, professional associations, student councils, women’s organizations, merchants’ associations and Islamic religious organizations.

On 13 August they announced that the Front was formed “in response to a call from the PNC” and that the PNF was “an integral part of the Palestine national movement as represented by the PLO”.

1974, 8 June: The 12th PNC adopted a ten-point programme advocating the establishment of a Palestinian national and independent authority on every part of Palestinian land that is liberated.

This marked the beginning of amendments to the Palestinian National Charter that was approved by the Palestine National Council in July1968.

1974, 13 November: Arafat addressed the UN General Assembly offering [Israel] a “branch of an olive tree” in one hand and a “gun” in the other and expressed his hope that the olive branch will not be dropped.

1977, March 12 – 22: The 13th PNC Congress decided to open dialogue and co-operation with liberal non-Zionist Jewish groups.

1979, March 26: A Peace Treaty was signed between Egypt and Israel.

1982: Fathi Shakaki split from Sheikh Ahmad Yassin’s Muslim Brethren to form Islamic Jihad.

1982, 14 August: Special U.S. envoy Philip Habib concluded an agreement for safe departure of PLO fighters from Beirut. On 28 August, Yassir Arafat and the Palestinian fighters left Beirut.

1983, February: The PNC made a decision to start official contacts with the Israelis.

1985, 11 February: An accord was signed between Jordan and the PLO to accommodate Reagan’s peace initiative. Arafat agreed with Hussein to “March together toward a just, peaceful settlement of the Middle East issue based on: land in exchange for peace, all UN resolutions on the conflict, the Palestinian right to self-determination and a solution to the refugee problem in accordance with UN resolutions. It was envisaged that the PLO would be represented within a joint Jordanian-Palestinian delegation and that if the negotiations were successful, a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation would emerge”. This intensified the schisms within the PLO, leading to the distancing of the PFLP, DFLP, and other factions from Arafat’s leadership.

1986, 6 November: A meeting was held in Romania between PLO representatives and the Israeli Peace Now Movement. Other meetings were held in Hungary on 12 June 1987 and in Toledo, Spain on 5 July 1989.

1987, 8 December: An Israeli truck ploughed a car in Gaza killing four Palestinians. The following day, Gaza exploded in angry anti-Israeli demonstrations and riots. These riots marked the beginning of what came to be known as the “Intifada”. For many months afterwards Palestinian stone-throwing youths set an agenda of disorder throughout the OPT. Young Palestinians, frustrated and angry with the prospect of indefinite Israeli rule, defied the military firepower arrayed against them.

In East Jerusalem, the “Intifada” scored a major success by breaking the image of Israel’s capital as a united city. Strikes and the introduction of a curfew in East Jerusalem destroyed the illusion of Arab-Jewish coexistence in the city.

1988, 22 August: The first, of three secret meetings, was held between Israeli and Palestinian representatives in Paris. The other two meetings were held in September 1988. The meetings aimed at arriving at “an agreement between the PLO and the Labor Party leadership regarding an end to the Intifada before the general elections in Israel in November”.

1988, 15 November: The 19th PNC adopted a resolution specifically recognizing UN Security Council resolution # 242, and all other UN resolutions on Palestine. Yassir Arafat read out the Declaration of Independence to the PNC and announced the creation of the state of Palestine “with its capital in the holy Jerusalem”.

1988, 26 December: Arafat implied that he would accept a Palestinian state limited to the occupied territories and that “many compromises were conceivable”.

1991, 30 October: The ‘Middle East Peace Conference’ convened in Madrid under the auspices of the U.S. and the USSR for peace talks to resolve the Israeli-Arab conflict. Israeli PM Shamir, later declared that he wanted the negotiations in Washington (following the Madrid conference) to continue for 10 years, if need be, so that he had enough time to keep on going with planned Israeli settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and leave nothing for the negotiations to talk about.

1993, 20 January: While the negotiations in Washington were going on between the Israelis and a Palestinian team lead by Faisal Husseini and Hanan Ashrawi, another round of secret negotiations with the Israelis were taking place in Oslo. The negotiations in Oslo were conducted by Ahmad Kure’i and Hassan Asfour under the supervision of Mahmoud Abbas. These negotiations in Oslo came as a surprise to everyone.

1993, 9 September: Arafat addressed a letter to Rabin recognizing the right of Israel to exist in peace and security, accepting UN Security Council resolutions 242 & 338, and renouncing acts of violence. In response, Rabin signed a letter to Arafat recognizing the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people.

1993, 13 September: A Declaration of Principles was signed between Israel and the PLO at the White House in Washington.

1994, 4 May: Arafat and Rabin signed the Gaza-Jericho self-rule accord.

1994, 12 July: Arafat returned to Gaza crossing the Rafah border by car.

1994, 25 July: Jordan and Israel signed a Declaration of Principles ending state of war, which was followed by a Peace Treaty that was signed on 26 October 1994.

1994, 1 September: Morocco and Tunisia opened liaison offices in Tel Aviv.

1994, 30 September: Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain - officially ended economic boycott of Israel.

1995, 28 September: Interim Agreement (Oslo II) on the 2nd stage of Palestinian autonomy was concluded by Israel and the PLO in Washington.

1996, January: The Palestinian Legislative Council in occupied Palestine was elected.

1996: IDF redeployed in the West Bank, including withdrawal from 6 West Bank cities.

1996, 24 April: The PNC voted to amend the Palestinian National Charter of 1968 according to the commitment made by Arafat in his letter of 9 September 1993 to Rabin.

1996, 5 May: Opening sessions for final status talks were held between the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel. The talks were never resumed following the election of Benjamin Netanyahu later in the month.

Uri Savir, the director general of the Israeli foreign ministry, omitted any reference to the Refugees Problem in his remarks during the session. Moreover, the press reported that the leading Palestinian representative at the meeting, Mahmud Abbas, refrained from mentioning the refugees in his speech, as requested by Israel.

1996, 8 July: Richard Perle delivered a document, ‘A Clean Break’, to the Israeli PM, Benjamin Netanyahu abrogating the Oslo Accords and overturning the entire concept of ‘comprehensive land for peace’, in favor of a jackboot policy of raw military conquest and occupation. The document attacked the peace process and the entire Arab world and became the guiding strategic doctrine of the U.S. and Israel.

1997, 27 October: Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu told the Knesset that he would not allow the creation of a Palestinian state and he would build more Jewish settlements.

1999, 27 November: A group of twenty Palestinians figures issued a manifesto under the title ‘The Homeland Calls Us’. For the first time since the signing of the Oslo Accords, the Palestinian Authority (PA) and its president were publicly accused of corruption, humiliation, abuse and of selling the homeland.

1998, 14 December: Leading Palestinians, meeting in the presence of President Clinton, reaffirmed the nullification of clauses in the PLO charter calling for Israel’s destruction.

Aviv Bushinsky, a spokesman for Israeli leader Benjamin Netanyahu, told Reuters that Netanyahu, who has frozen the further handover of West Bank land, would continue to insist Palestinians meet other Israeli demands. Before the session, however, Netanyahu put the Palestinians on notice that the Wye River would not move ahead until other Israeli conditions, including a pledge not to declare a Palestinian state next year, were met.

2000, 28 September: Ariel Sharon and six other Likud leaders made a provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa Compound. The visit sparked clashes with angry Palestinians, which developed into an overall second Intifada.

2001, August 10: In an unprecedented step, the Israeli occupation forces raided the Orient House, the headquarters of the Palestinian team to the Peace talks, and the seat of the multilateral talks. At around 1:30 am, large numbers of Israeli forces besieged the area of the Orient House and broke into the premises of the headquarters. The Palestinian flag was pulled down and the Israeli flag was hoisted in its place. All files related to the negotiations, along with other classified documents were also confiscated. Other Palestinian institutions linked to the Orient House were also closed.

2002, March 28: The Arab League summit held in Beirut promised Israel peace, security and normal relations in return for a full withdrawal from Arab lands occupied since 1976, the establishment of a Palestinian state with east Jerusalem as its capital and a ‘fair solution’ for the Palestinian refugees. In response, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield on the following day against the Palestinians in the West Bank.

2002, June/July: Israel launched Operation Determined Path to reoccupy the West Bank areas handed to the PA following the Oslo accords.

EPILOGUE:

Oslo provided Israel with a tool to strangulate Palestinian resistance and left the Zionists free to steel more Palestinian lands and push Palestinian Arabs into oblivion. What’s more painful and shameful is to see the Palestinian factions fight each other instead of fighting against the Zionist invaders of the country.

SOURCES OF INFORMATION: In addition to personal follow up of events related with Palestine and the Zionist-Arab conflict all along, the following sources were used in compiling the above chronology:

Abbas, Mahmoud, The Road to Oslo, Printed Material Co. for Publication and Distribution: Beirut, 1994, 2nd Edition, (Arabic)

Antonius, George, The Arab Awakening: The Story of the Arab National Movement. J. B. Lippincott Company: Philadelphia, New York, Toronto, 1939

Ha’aretz: Secret passage to Oslo, 12 February 1999

Haikal, Mohammad Hassanine, Secret Negotiations between the Arabs and Israel, Cairo, 1996, (Arabic)

Journal of Palestine Studies, Volumes: XVII No. 3, Spring 1998 – XXXVI No. 2, Winter 2007

Palumbo, Michael, Imperial Israel: The History of the Occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Ltd., 1990

McDowall, David, Palestine and Israel: The uprising and Beyond. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1989

Zureik, Elia, The Palestinian Refugees: Background, 1996