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.”

ISRAEL’S next prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will face an early test when he finally takes office in the next few weeks: should he ditch an election pledge and follow his defence chiefs’ strategic advice to explore a peace treaty with Syria?

During his campaign Netanyahu, the leader of the conservative Likud party, had struck a belligerent note and pledged he would never agree to Syria’s main demand that the Golan Heights, seized by Israel in the 1967 war, should be returned.

On reaching office, however, Netanyahu will be presented with reports compiled by Mossad, the overseas spy agency, and by military intelligence, that strongly advocate opening negotiations with President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

According to sources familiar with the documents, both Amos Yadlin, the head of military intelligence, and Meir Dagan, his Mossad counterpart, recommend a deal not only to eliminate the risk of war with Syria but also to create a split between Damascus and Iran, Israel’s arch foe.

A United Nations report last week said Iran had accumulated a stockpile of more than one ton of low-enriched uranium hexafluoride at its nuclear facility in Natanz. If highly enriched this would be enough for a nuclear weapon.

Intelligence analysts say no Israeli government could accept a nuclear-armed Iran. But if it came to a showdown Israel would want Syria, which has close ties to Iran, to stay neutral. It also wants Syria to stop supplying arms to Hezbollah, the Islamic political and paramilitary group in Lebanon.

Israel has recently violated Syrian sovereignty on three occasions: with the assassination of Imad Mughniyeh, a Hezbollah leader, in Damascus last February; the killing of a Syrian general, Mohammed Suleiman, near the Syrian port of Tartous last August; and a raid on an alleged nuclear facility in September 2007.

The reports argue that Israel is vulnerable to Syria’s upgraded chemical weapons capability, which is being expanded with the help of North Korean experts. Satellite images that emerged last week showed new construction work at the heavily protected site of al-Safir.

Netanyahu, who was prime minister from 1996 to 1999, is likely to form a coalition with religious parties and the Yisrael Beiteinu (Israel is Our Home) party, led by Avigdor Lieberman, the secular rightwinger.

Yesterday Senator John Kerry, the former US Democratic presidential candidate, visited Assad amid signs that Washington is stepping up pressure on Israel to negotiate a deal.

As prime minister Netanyahu came close to signing an agreement in 1998 with Hafez al-Assad, the late Syrian president, in which he agreed to give back the Golan in return for a lasting peace.

“Indeed I did have negotiations with the Syrians,” Netanyahu admitted in an interview in 2007. “I told Assad I’d need Mount Hermon [a 4,000ft Israeli outpost overlooking Damascus] because I need radar to look towards Iran, and Assad gave up the mountain. I was surprised and happy.”

Aides close to Netanyahu say an agreement with Syria is the surest way for Netanyahu to make political progress with the new administration, as they profoundly disagree on other aspects of a Middle East peace deal.

“If he achieves a real breakthrough with Syria, he expects the Americans to give him a break with the Palestinians,” said a close aide of Netanyahu.

At least one rocket fired from Lebanon landed in northern Israel yesterday, wounding three people and prompting Israel to respond with an artillery attack.

Israeli and Palestinian leaders are under growing pressure to agree on common ground ahead of a Middle East peace conference in Washington later this year.

The talks, expected in November and billed as the most significant on American soil since the Camp David meeting of 2000, are viewed as an attempt by President George W Bush to build a lasting peace in the region before he leaves office in 18 months’ time.

America is trying to draw on support from the six countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council, as well as Jordan and Egypt. The backing of countries such as Saudi Arabia and the oil-rich states in the Gulf will be vital for the talks’ success.

Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state who is expected to chair the talks, is putting pressure on Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, and Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister, to agree on the core issues ahead of a “substantive and meaningful” summit. The talks hinge on the division of Jerusalem, the fate of Palestinian refugees after Israel was created in 1948 and Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank. “The US is pushing harder than ever for a Palestinian-Israeli solution as part of its global approach to the Middle East,” said a US official involved in the talks.

Serious negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians last took place in the summer of 2000 between Ehud Barak, then the Israeli prime minister, and Yasser Arafat, then the Palestinian leader.

Both sides blamed each other for the summit’s failure which led to a four-year Palestinian intifada. Sources close to Olmert say he will push for a deal involving Israeli withdrawal from 95% of the West Bank and a land exchange with the Palestinians for the remaining 5%. The concessions suggest that Olmert, a lifelong advocate of a “greater Israel”, has moderated his views. “Something happened to Olmert and now he’s willing to go all the way to solve the Palestinian issue,” said one insider.

Abbas faces similar domestic political challenges after Hamas took control of the Gaza strip earlier this year. “If Israel does not give Abbas the entire West Bank in which to establish the state of Palestine, it’s only a matter of time before Hamas takes over the West Bank as well,” said one Israeli analyst.

THE former Israeli prime minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu has emerged as the frontrunner to succeed Ehud Olmert, the prime minister who has been fiercely criticised for his management of the war in Lebanon.

Public support for Olmert, 61, has disintegrated. The prime minister is clinging to power after a week in which his conduct of the war last summer was condemned by the government-appointed Winograd commission and his cabinet was riven by dissent. Yesterday Amir Peretz, the defence minister, announced his intention to step down at the end of this month.

According to weekend opinion polls, Olmert’s approval rating is barely above zero. More than 60% of Israelis want him to resign. The American-educated Netanyahu, 57, enjoys three times the popularity of any potential rival for the post.

In a powerful speech to Israel’s parliament last week, Netanyahu, who was prime minister from 1996 until he lost a general election in 1999, declared: “The state of Israel needs better leadership.” If he returns to office he will be expected to adopt an aggressive approach to his Middle Eastern neighbours and to display his confidence in Israel’s use of military force and political muscle.

“Peace can never be achieved by unilateral steps,” he said, referring to Olmert’s willingness to withdraw from much of the West Bank.

“The time for a reassessment of our policy has come. We should look at the situation without any illusion and restore to the state of Israel its might, deterrent power and above all our self-respect,” he argued, while Olmert sat watching, stony-faced.

Netanyahu is the principal beneficiary of a shift to the right in Israeli politics and society. Increasingly, middle-class voters have placed a strong emphasis on security and rejected the collectivist views that inspired an older generation of Jewish settlers.

“We’re fed up with the Arabs and the chances of reaching peace with them,” said one Tel Aviv lawyer. “We gave them too many chances. They don’t want us here, period. That’s why I think Netanyahu and his political approach is the right one.”

Indeed many Israelis now believe that a security wall to separate them from the Palestinians is the best solution, rather than peace negotiations which they believe will lead nowhere.

For them, Netanyahu is the tough-talking alternative to the hesitant Olmert, who they blame for failing to win the war with Hezbollah.

Netanyahu served for four years as an officer in Israel’s equivalent of the SAS, while Olmert did his national service as a war correspondent. This gives the hawkish Netanyahu an advantage over Olmert, who is seen as weak and vacillating on military matters.

Netanyahu’s opponents warn against a return to high office. “He can’t work under pressure and is too panicky by nature to be a good prime minister,” said a rival.

Haim Israeli, a long-serving but now retired civil servant in the Ministry of Defence, said: “He’s a dangerous man.”

Last week Olmert outmanoeuvred Tzipi Livni, his foreign minister, who called on him to resign, persuading all but two of his Kadima MPs to support him. But it seemed a Pyrrhic victory. A huge demonstration attended by people from across the political spectrum suggested that his days in power are numbered.

If Olmert goes by the summer, when the full findings of the Winograd inquiry will be published, his successor will face two immediate challenges: the Iranian nuclear threat and the Palestinian issue.

A close friend of Netanyahu said: “He won’t wait too long to attack Iran.” As for the Palestinians, it seems unlikely that he would make territorial compromises with them.

“A shaky hand is holding David’s sword these days,” Netanyahu told Olmert last week. “The restoration of our might is a matter of life or death.”