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.”

A year before George W Bush hands over the reins of power in Washington DC to his successor, he is embarking on his first trip as president to Israel and the Palestinian territories.

The question though has to be, why only now?

After all, this is a president who has made much during his time in power of his commitment to the creation of an independent Palestinian state living alongside Israel.

Is the timing just a simple case of an unpopular president desperately seeking a legacy?

In recent days President Bush has given a number of interviews to Middle Eastern newspapers.

Asked by the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot whether he saw a chance to sign a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, he replied: "Yes, I do, before I leave - I'm an optimistic guy."

Presumably he meant before he leaves office.

I think we could assume that would be legacy enough.

The thing you can bet on is that almost no-one in the Middle East believes it will happen.

Three-fold strategy

So where does President Bush get his "optimism" from?

Ahead of the trip, his national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, told journalists the president was hoping to build on advances made at the meeting in Annapolis late last year.

That meeting basically ended with a commitment from the Israeli and Palestinian leaders to continue meeting one another.

They have had one tense meeting since then.

Still, the president is hoping a three-fold strategy could help lead to that illusive peace deal.

First, encourage both leaders to arrive at a shared vision of a future Palestinian state.

At the same time, help the Palestinians build working institutions so they can enforce security themselves. In addition, improve Israeli-Arab relations across the Middle East.

Mr Hadley says it is the culmination of a process the president has been working on since he took office.

"[He] has been working fairly consistently over seven years to put in place the building blocks of what now offers an opportunity for peace," he told reporters.

It has been hard though to see any of those "building blocks" over the past few years on the ground in the Middle East.

Help from Iran

I remember speaking to the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat back in January 2005, just after Mahmoud Abbas had won the Palestinian presidential election. He was succeeding Yasser Arafat - a man Mr Bush would not work with.

Mr Abbas was seen then, as now, as a moderate. Mr Erekat told me the international community had to immediately "show they would support the moderate forces".

"And if they don't?" I asked.

"Extremism will win."

Mahmoud Abbas did not get the international support he wanted. A year later I covered the parliamentary election victory of Hamas.

Indeed it is only comparatively recently, that the US and others have been seen to fully embrace Mr Abbas as a "man of peace" as the popular slogan has it.

Still, better late than never you might say, and Mr Bush does have one big thing in his favour now.

When it comes to trying to get the Arab nations, including Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states on side, the Iranians may be helping.

That is because those states fear a nuclear-armed Iran - if that is indeed where Iranian ambitions lie - just as much as Israel does.

Mr Bush hopes that gives him some leverage. He will continue to promise the Gulf states security. In return he will expect those states' support for his Israeli-Palestinian initiative.

He will also hope to encourage them, and the Saudis and Egyptians for that matter, to try to open up their societies to democracy, and political liberalisation.

It is loosely called his "freedom agenda". As Stephen Hadley put it, "we need to promote democracy and freedom as a counterpoint... to the ideology of the terrorists".

It is a good idea, but having lived in both the Middle East and the United States in the past four years, I can assure you that what looks good on paper in Washington looks less convincing on the streets of the Arab world.

There people will tell you that the "ideology of the terrorists", or "resistance" as many put it, stems from big injustices that first need to be addressed.

And many add that until Mr Bush, and that unknown successor of his, grasp that, there will never be any progress towards a lasting peace.

Gaza - Passing from Israel to Gaza is like passing into another world.

The drive from Jerusalem to the crossing point takes just over an hour.

You can stop at a service station to grab a cafe latte. Then it is time to leave the modernity of Israel behind.

Your passport is stamped by soldiers in a smart gleaming departure hall. The metal blast doors in the huge concrete wall slide open remotely.

Israel's security services control who gets in - and out - of Gaza.

And then, past the walls and the watchtowers, you enter a place of destruction and hopelessness which is sealed off from the rest of the world.

In Gaza City, a policeman in a fluorescent yellow jacket was directing traffic.

Cars were actually stopping at red lights - a rare sight before now.

Most people told us that law and order had improved since Hamas seized control in a bloody fight with rivals Fatah back in June.

But they also know that ever since Hamas was elected in January 2006, Gaza has been increasingly isolated.

Not everyone in Gaza supports Hamas but those who do see the group as liberators.

It is hard to measure exactly how many people here would vote for Hamas if elections were held again.

Much of the world regards Hamas as a terrorist organisation and will not deal with it while it refuses to recognise Israel's right to exist.

That is why Gaza is boycotted by much of the international community.

It is now almost entirely dependent on aid, with practically everyone reliant on handouts provided by the United Nations.

Gaza has also been abandoned by the Palestinian leadership in the West Bank - which is run by Fatah.

Many Gazans blame all their politicians for the situation they are now in.

"The Palestinians cannot make a decision to sit together and work together," Hanah Iloh told me.

A smartly-dressed Muslim woman wearing a headscarf, Ms Iloh is an architectural engineer.

Did she think the Palestinian politicians were making life difficult for the Palestinian people?

"Yes, I think they are responsible for this," she said.

"Yes, Israel is the occupier, but it's most important to have unity between us so we can make peace with Israel.

"It's very hard to make peace with Israel if we can't make peace with ourselves."

Gaza is sealed off - politically and economically.

The borders are shut and companies cannot export anything.

Only 10% of Gaza's industries are doing any sort of work, according to the United Nations.

Since the middle of June when Hamas seized power, Gaza's industries have lost a total of $23m (£11m).

Ismail Abu El is the director of an industrial zone on the edge of Gaza which has been crippled by the closures.

"This is killing the people indirectly. Not by the gun, but by economics," he told me, as he stood in front of a warehouse full of locally-made furniture packed and ready to be exported to Israel. It will not be going anywhere soon.

The manager of the company that makes the furniture says because the order has not arrived on time he is now being fined every day for not meeting the contract, and there is a court case looming. Misery and fear Elsewhere factory workers are being laid off. The industrial zone is quiet.

"The people of Gaza don't need to live like refugees," Mr Abu El says.

"They want to live as humans, not in a prison."

The drive south through the Gaza Strip takes about 45 minutes, along dirty impoverished streets and children collecting water in plastic bottles from a standpipe in the road.

At the border crossing into Egypt, the man in charge showed us round an empty departure hall.

The only escape for Gazans is a day at the beach The metal detectors and X-ray machines were switched off.

The passport control computers gathered dust.

It is not just goods that are being kept in - so are the people.

Mahmoud Barhoum, a captain in Hamas' Executive Force, pointed to the room.

"This is the departure hall to the outside world," he said. "Anyone who wants to leave Gaza has to go through here. But right now no-one can pass."

Until Hamas and Fatah can come to an agreement on who will police the crossing, the gates into Egypt will remain firmly locked.

Gaza today is isolated like never before. There is misery and fear on every single Palestinian face you see here.

The only escape is the beach. Children play in the surf.

Women come out of the sea, dressed in their long black abaya, the Muslim garment used to cover all the body. Palestinian flags fly from the fishing boats.

This should be a Mediterranean paradise.

Instead it is a tiny, crowded strip of land, where the people feel abandoned.

Raed Atamna's long, yellow, Mercedes taxi rattles us over the potholes of northern Gaza. His car is old, tired, and slowly falling apart. A little like Gaza itself.

Gazans have held regular protests calling for Johnston's release He stops at the Palestinian side of the crossing point between Gaza and Israel, where a row of taxis stand idle under the hot Mediterranean sun.

"There's no business. Business has finished completely," Raed says. "There's nothing. No journalists. Business has dropped since the kidnap."

Alan Johnston was kidnapped eight long weeks ago.

He must - by now - be the most recognised western face in Gaza. Several times a week rallies have been held calling for his release.

His picture has been held aloft on countless posters. Most of the rallies have been organised by Palestinian journalists.

They are concerned about Alan Johnston's safety, but as Nidal al-Mugrabi from the Gaza Committee to Protect Journalists says, they're also worried about their own future.

"We are afraid that Gaza will be classified as one of the most dangerous places in the world. We're worried countries will stop sending foreign journalists, business people, and aid workers into Gaza. Gaza will be forgotten."

Deterioration

To a certain extent his worst fears are already coming true.

Gaza is deteriorating - and fast. Street battles between rival security forces or clans have killed many.

The kidnap threat for westerners is constantly high. Internet cafes, restaurants and a Christian bookshop have been targeted.

Even the United Nations is becoming a target.

In early May a radical group claimed responsibility for an attack on a UN-run school in the southern Gaza Strip. In a statement it said a festival being held at the school was not in keeping with Islamic values.

Radicalism prospers

John Ging is one of a handful of Westerners who do remain in Gaza. He's the director of UNRWA, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

Earlier this year his armoured car was shot at as he drove towards Gaza City.

People can not move in and out of Gaza. There's no economic activity. The cycle of violence that people have endured here has been ferocious؟ that's fertile ground for radicalism John Ging United Nations

"In the autumn of 2005 we had almost 100 UN international staff here. We have reduced to something around ten to 15," Mr Ging said.

"Simply put there is a closure regime. People can not move in and out of Gaza. There's no economic activity. The cycle of violence that people have endured here has been ferocious.

"All of those conditions combine to create despair among the population. That's fertile ground for radicalism and people are struggling to survive."

Radicalism is something which many in Gaza are beginning to fear.

"If the violence continues will we begin to see more radicalisation of politics," says Nidal al-Mugrabi from the Gaza Committee to Protect Journalists.

Johnston was the only Western reporter based permanently in Gaza

"Maybe it will give birth to more extreme groups that would target foreigners on the basis of nationality or religion."

At the long, grim, depressing walkway that leads out of Gaza and into Israel, some Palestinian workers are painting the walls.

The officials who normally check foreigners in and out of Gaza though are sitting around, idle. Few are passing through for now.

Eight weeks ago the officials gave a cheery smile to Alan Johnston, a man who they had got to know well.

They checked his passport, and then he strode through, towards his Gaza home. A couple of hours later he was kidnapped.

Ever since, it's not just been him who is suffering. Gaza is also feeling the effects.

Jerusalem - If you live outside the Middle East you might wonder why journalists based in Jerusalem are often so dismissive about the prospects for peace these days. 2003, the Israeli and Palestinian leaders have sat down together with a senior US diplomat.

That is true, but it is just about the only positive sign at the moment.

Let's just state for the record that there may be some "peace initiative" being worked on in secret that we have not been told about. But I doubt it.

Did you see the press statement held after this three-way meeting?

"Nothing Expected"

Condoleezza Rice stepped up in front of the microphone, on her own, without Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.

They did not even appear on the same podium together.

Condoleezza Rice said the meeting had been "useful and productive".

She said she would be back in Jerusalem soon.

We were not expecting anything, but what happened today shows how far we are from any sort of meaningful progress.

There is a huge hurdle that needs to be overcome before there can be movement. And I do not see how it can be overcome easily.

No Recognition Yet

Ever since Hamas won the Palestinian elections over a year ago, the US, the UN, Russia and the European Union have refused to deal with the Palestinian government. So too has Israel.

That is because Hamas refuses to recognise Israel. Its charter calls for the destruction of the country.

While Hamas remains in the government, and until it renounces violence, accepts Israel's right to exist, and agrees to adhere to past agreements between Israel and the Palestinians, Condoleezza Rice says there will be no dealings with the Palestinian government.

When I talk to senior Hamas figures, they tell me that they are not prepared explicitly to make the statements that the international community requires of them.

They argue that the former Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat made similar commitments, and it got the Palestinians no closer to having their own state.

Pressure on Palestinians

It is true, however, to say that there are subtleties in Hamas' position which might allow the international community to modify its stance.

A Government of Unity?

It is also important to point out that Hamas has not carried out a suicide bombing in two and a half years. It was however part of a group that captured an Israeli soldier last summer.

But Ms Rice has again made it clear that if Hamas does not comply with the wishes of the US and Israel, there can be no recognition of the Palestinian government.

And, without that, how can there be meaningful talks?

There is another important issue to mention - the pressure is on the Palestinians at the moment, not Israel.

'Continued Colonisation'

And yet Israel is constantly breaking international law.

Just drive through the occupied West Bank, and you will see Israel's settlements growing daily.

Under the first phase of the international peace plan known as the roadmap the Palestinians have to "end terror and violence".

Under the same plan the Israelis have to "freeze all settlement activity." Neither side is living up to their commitments.

Many - the Palestinians of course, but a lot of observers as well - see Israel's continued colonisation of Palestinian lands as the major obstacle to peace.

And yet these days, you do not hear the US telling Israel to stop its building.

The US is no longer seen as an impartial arbiter in this region.

So it should be no surprise that Ms Rice leaves here apparently empty-handed.