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.”

Contrary to his usual custom, Magid Abu Samha has stopped buying a week's supply of fruits and vegetables for his eight-member family. The university lecturer from Birkat Al-Wizz west of the Maghazi refugee camp in central Gaza is afraid they will rot before the week is out due to the constant electricity cuts that sometimes last for 16 hours a day and make refrigerators useless.

Electricity blackouts are only one of the innumerable hardships that more than a million Palestinians in Gaza are forced to endure.

In order to accommodate themselves to them, people have had to alter many aspects of their daily lives, with some families changing their sleep patterns to coincide with the cuts and school and university students staying awake all hours to take advantage of the few hours when their homes are connected to the mains.

The cuts have also hit commercial establishments hard, with stores being unable to display their wares and frozen goods vanishing from the market because they cannot be kept under such conditions.

However, even if Gazans have managed to adjust in various ways to the blackouts in their daily lives, the cuts have also exposed them to more serious risks and dangers.

Gaza was plunged into darkness 10 days ago when the only power station in the Strip ground to a halt due to a lack of fuel.

According to Ahmed Abul-Omrein, director of information in the Gaza Energy Department, talks with Egypt over providing the fuel needed to operate the plant produced "only promises", resulting in the blackout.

Should the closure of the plant continue, it will lead to a 70 per cent deficit in Gaza's electricity needs, as only 30 per cent of the electricity in Gaza is supplied from Egypt and Israel.

Unless fuel supplies for the Gaza plant are forthcoming, blackouts will continue for up to 18 hours a day, with available electricity being distributed across the Strip during the six remaining hours.

To make matters worse, privately owned generating stations have nearly run out of the type of fuel needed to operate the small electricity generators that families use during blackouts.

The crisis has also struck in the midst of a cold winter when the electricity demand increases.

Many Gazans have reverted to using kerosene burners, and the rise in demand for these, commonly used before the introduction of electricity into the Strip in the early 1980s, has caused a rise in demand for kerosene, which has been rapidly disappearing from the market.

As result, the use of kerosene burners has been restricted for essential purposes only, such as cooking family meals.

The Ministry of Health in Gaza has warned that the lives of hospital patients are at risk due to the electricity shortages.

Director of media relations Ashraf Al-Qudra said that the lives of 80 per cent of patients were in peril, including 100 infants in incubators and 404 patients whose treatment uses equipment requiring a constant electricity supply.

Al-Qudra said that 72 per cent of hospital fuel reserves had been depleted and that they were on the verge of total paralysis. He urged all the Palestinian factions to act quickly to save the lives of patients whose lives were at risk, also appealing to Egypt for electricity supplies.

Hospitals are not the only worry, since municipal leaders in Gaza have said that more than 200 wells, 40 wastewater pumps, four wastewater treatment plants, and 10 large and dozens of small water purification stations are at risk of grinding to a halt should the crisis continue, as will hundreds of refuse collection machines.

The municipal leaders said that Gaza was on the brink of a "humanitarian crisis", warning that essential health and environmental services, public utilities, wastewater disposal facilities and hospitals were on the verge of collapse because of the electricity and fuel crisis.

The Ministry of Agriculture in Gaza has also warned of an "immanent" food crisis due to the electricity cuts and fuel shortages, saying in a statement this week that the food supply was threatened with disruption.

Wells, farm machinery, processing and packaging plants, and poultry farms were particularly in danger, the ministry said.

Meanwhile, hundreds of boats are trapped in port due to a lack of fuel.

The production stoppage in the agricultural sector was "another episode in the string of catastrophes that has afflicted Gaza because of the Israeli blockade and the lack of intervention on the part of the Arab and European states and human-rights organisations," the ministry statement said.

The public transport system in Gaza also faces impending crisis. Because of the shortage of petrol from Egypt, private vehicles will soon have to stop operating, leading to a rise in the pressure on public transport.

Despite the crisis, the local governments of Gaza and Ramallah are still deducting 170 shekels ($44) from every government employee's pay to help foot the bill for domestic electricity consumption.

Under current conditions, many civil servants cannot see the justification for continuing these deductions.

Ahmed Hamad, 65, told the Weekly that two of his sons worked for the government in Ramallah, while a third worked for a government agency in Gaza. Together, they have 540 shekels deducted from their monthly salaries, even though they live in the same house and suffer from the ongoing electricity crisis.

A further cause of the fuel crisis in Gaza is political and related to the internal rift among the Palestinians. While the Arab League has said that Gaza can be hooked up to the regional grid that covers seven countries, among them Egypt, this can only happen if the Palestinian factions reach reconciliation first.

According to the League, Gaza cannot be connected to the regional grid in the absence of a request from Mahmoud Abbas in his capacity as Palestinian president.

However, it seems that Abbas has been treating the electricity question in Gaza as one of the issues needing to be resolved as part of a comprehensive agreement between the factions, and it has several times been on the agenda of talks between Abbas and Khaled Meshaal, head of the Hamas political bureau.

Some of the pressures afflicting Palestinians in Gaza have been caused by the Israeli blockade. However, others have been caused by the Palestinians' own failure to establish a system of government that puts the welfare of the people first.

Until such a system is in place, the Palestinians' daily tragedy is likely to continue.

The staff at the cabinet's secretariat-general in Al-Rimal district, in northwest Gaza City, joke about the fate of their jobs if someone other than Ismail Haniyeh is chosen to form the next government. Despite their humour, these young civil servants, no older than 25 years old, realise that their work environment will change after Friday's meeting between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas politburo chief Khaled Meshaal. There are rumours that Fatah and Hamas have agreed on the composition of the transitional cabinet that will be led by someone other than Haniyeh or Abbas favourite Salam Fayyad.

Sources told Al-Ahram Weekly that Mohamed Mustafa, the director of the Palestinian Investment Fund, is the frontrunner to form the Palestinian interim government after debate over candidates between the two factions during secret talks in Cairo. Informed Palestinian sources assert that Mustafa, a close confidante of Abbas, has a much better chance than Palestinian businessman Mazen Sonqrot who is a Hamas ally. The sources added that it is expected at the end of the Abbas-Meshaal meeting that they will announce their agreement on forming a government, and that Mustafa will be named as the new prime minister instead of Fayyad, since Hamas has made it explicitly clear that it would never agree to Fayyad forming the next government.

The sources continued that during the secret talks between Fatah and Hamas in Cairo, no candidates from the Gaza Strip were being discussed for the job of interim prime minister, although a few months ago Hamas had nominated Jamal Al-Khodari, an independent MP and chairman of the board of trustees of the Islamic University in Gaza.

Mustafa has a similar professional background as Fayyad, having experience in international companies, especially in the sectors of industry, energy, infrastructure and IT. Mustafa was an adviser to the economic reform and privatisation programme in Kuwait (2000) and a senior consultant in Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (1997-1998). He also worked in institutions in the US, Kuwait and Palestine, becoming the general manager of the Palestinian Telecommunications Company, PALTEL (1995-1996). He later became the director of the Palestinian Investment Fund and a senior adviser to Abbas.

Sources tell the Weekly that Fatah and Hamas have agreed to form a unified leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) that would include the secretary-generals of Palestinian factions as well as members of the PLO's Executive Committee. Informed sources also said that this unified leadership will decide on the political programme of the PLO in the coming phase, emphasising that outlining a joint political agenda is a critical step since this would help overcome differences when discussing other reconciliation issues, such as elections, restructuring the security apparatus, and reforming the PLO and its institutions based on new principles.

The source added that agreeing to a joint political agenda does not necessarily mean that the factions will abandon their ideologies, but that they will agree on common principles that allow everyone a margin of manoeuvrability on the domestic, international and regional stage. The source continued that Fatah and Hamas agreed that the immense changes taking place in the Arab world should be used to serve the Palestinian cause, and this requires a joint agenda.

The source also revealed that there is a proposal to form a committee of experts to include Palestinian and Arab intellectuals and researchers to assist in composing the suggested political agenda for the unified leadership. Among the candidates for membership in the committee are Hassan Nafaa from Egypt and Palestinian thinker Azmi Bishara, and others.

The source told the Weekly that despite agreement there are still concerns that the two sides would find it difficult to implement other reconciliation commitments, especially setting a date for elections and all issues pertaining to the security apparatus. The two sides have not yet agreed on an election date; Hamas proposed that elections be held one year after the transitional government is formed, while Fatah wants elections to take place in May 2012.

As for overhauling security agencies, continued the source, Fatah and Hamas are not the only parties that have a say on the matter. For example, the fact that all of the West Bank is under direct Israeli control cannot be ignored because it gives Tel Aviv the power to influence any agreement on security agencies operating there. The source added that it is certain that the occupation army that targets Hamas leaders and activists would not allow Hamas elements to be in senior positions of security agencies.

Khedr Habib, a leading figure in the Islamic Jihad movement, said that his group would not participate in any upcoming parliamentary or presidential elections. "Our position is very clear regarding legislative and presidential elections and it has not changed," Habib said. "We will boycott these elections because they are a product of the Oslo Agreement."

Israel has made it clear that it will not accept the Palestinians uniting ranks. Maariv newspaper reported that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu sent a strongly worded message to the Egyptians because of the latter's efforts to achieve Palestinian reconciliation and the formation of a unity national government that includes Fatah and Hamas. The newspaper stated that Netanyahu informed the Egyptians that Israel would sever ties with the Palestinian Authority (PA) if the coming transitional government does not recognise the principles of the Internaitonal Quartet.

Maariv continued that the US administration is exerting intense efforts, in cooperation with Israel, to pressure Egypt to prevent the formation of a unity national government between Fatah and Hamas that does not recognise Quartet principles. The Quartet, membered by the US, Russia, EU and UN, outlined conditions for the recognition of any government that is formed or includes Hamas after its victory in the 25 January 2006 elections. These include recognition of Israel and commitment to earlier agreements signed by the PA.

Maariv added that Netanyahu's advisers had previously warned of a serious deterioration in security coordination between the PA and Israel if the new government were to reject the Quartet prerequisites. Israel threatened that if Hamas were part of the new government, Israeli forces would invade areas in the West Bank without prior warning or coordination in order to "protect Israel's security". Netanyahu stated several times that his call for re-launching direct talks without preconditions with the PA would be worthless if Abbas formed a unity government with Hamas. "We will not be able to negotiate with a government that calls for our extinction," he said, adding Israel would stop transferring tax revenues to the PA's treasury.

Some Palestinians believe that Tel Aviv's threats aim to help Fayyad stay in power, and it appears that Fayyad is using Netanyahu's threats to the same end. Ghassan Al-Khatib, director of the media centre in Fayyad's government, said that the PA would not be able to meet its financial obligations if Israel withholds Palestinian tax revenues. In this manner, Fayyad wants to deliver a message that if he does not remain as prime minister, nobody can guarantee that PA employees will receive their salaries regularly.

But there are doubts that Netanyahu will succeed in changing Abbas's mind about reconciling, and there are also doubts that Fayyad will be able to benefit from Israel's position. Fayyad realises that the voices within Fatah calling for him to step down are much louder than those calling for the same thing inside Hamas. Abbas Zaki, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, revealed that his group has decided to make reconciliation succeed at any cost, adding that opposition by the US and Israel will not deter the PA from agreeing to form a transitional government.

"The region is at the threshold of many great changes," he said. "The Palestinians must revise their positions and face these coming changes. It is time that we reject the negative aspects of the past and launch a genuine end of divisions, for our people, to reflect the will of the Palestinians. This would require a united position, agenda and rhetoric."

It appears that Fatah and Hamas are close to implementing the reconciliation agreement despite difficulties, obstacles, their history and pressure by Israel and the US, while the margin of flexibility for both groups is narrowing.

"I felt that God brought back my son from the dead," said Fatema, mother of Gamal Nassar who attends college in the city of Safad in northern Israel. She hugs him tight after checking to make sure he was not hurt by the firebombs that targeted his car as he left his rented apartment in Safad on Friday. It was not a surprise attack, since it's part of spiralling violence by Jewish youth against Arab students who come to attend college from villages surrounding the city. The town's rabbi, Samuel Eliyahu, recently issued an edict banning Jewish settlers from renting homes to Arab students.

Salam Aghbaria, 20, was praying in the flat he rented in the town when the walls shook violently after Jewish youth threw a number of firebombs into the apartment. Aghbaria miraculously survived. Many of Nassar and Aghbaria's Arab classmates quickly left their rentals and returned to their families. Now they commute the long distance daily to attend college because it is too dangerous for them to rent flats in town.

What upset the students, their families and leaders of the Palestinians of 1948 is that the Israeli government did not lift a finger against the racist instigator-rabbi, and no measures were taken against the Jewish terrorist groups targeting Arab youth. While some 1948 Palestinians wait for an official response by Israel, tens of senior rabbis in Israel are signing an edict prohibiting Jews from renting or selling their homes to non-Jews, including Arabs and foreign workers.

The Israeli news website Walla! stated that the rabbis are justifying the edict out of fear of inter-marriage between Jews and gentiles. They are also concerned about a drop in the price of residential units where non-Jews live. The edict stated: "Any Jew who sells or rents their home to non-Jews must know that he is costing a loss for his neighbours." The rabbis further called for a boycott of any Jew who sells or rents his home to a gentile, instructing other Jews to ostracise him, not trade with him, and ban him from entering Jewish holy sites until he revokes the sale or rental to a non-Jew.

The portal noted that all senior rabbis of major cities, who all receive salaries from the state, signed the edict despite the fact that they come from across the religious spectrum. The decree is the last in a series of racist proclamations by Jewish rabbis; an earlier one banned 1948 Palestinians from nominating themselves in the Israeli elections, and another prevented Jews from donating blood to gentiles.

It seems that the political and legal environment in Israel encourages racist killings, as demonstrated by the case of Rabbi Isaac Shapiro, director of the Youssef Hai Religious School in the settlement of Har Brakha, north of the occupied city of Nablus in the northern West Bank. Shapiro recently issued a book justifying the killing of Palestinian men, women and babies. In Law of the King, Shapiro published tens of references from the Torah and Talmud justifying the killing of babies of people who are enemies of Jews.

Haaretz and Maariv newspapers published excerpts of the book noting that Shapiro had stretched the interpretation of killing the infants of gentiles if they were in a place to harm the Jews. Another stretch is Shapiro's assertion that the children of the leaders of enemies should be murdered to influence the morale of their fathers: "It is acceptable to harm the child of any leader to prevent [the father] from evil acts... We found that jurisprudence justifies the murder of the children of non-Jews in anticipation of the danger they pose in the future if they grow up to become evil like their fathers."

One of the most dangerous decrees is one signed by a large number of rabbis in the Association of Rabbis of the Land of Israel headed by Rabbi Dov Lior, which urged the Israeli army to indiscriminately bomb Palestinian residential areas. A number of religious officials in Olmert's former cabinet used this edict to support the purposeful killing of Palestinians during the last war by Israel against the Gaza Strip at the end of 2008. The proclamation stated: "Jewish law permits the bombing of Palestinian civilian targets, and the Torah allows launching missiles in the direction of fire, even if there are civilians there."

The signatory rabbis went as far as saying that the army does not have to warn civilians before shelling begins.

Rabbi Eliyahu Reskin, a leading settlements rabbi, mocked calls for dialogue between Jewish rabbis and religious officials in the Arab world. Reskin believes the only form of dialogue between Muslims and Jews should be with "bullets", and asserts that without convincing the Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular, that a settlement cannot be imposed on Israel by force, there is no point in such a dialogue.

It is clear that racist incitement by rabbis succeeded in embedding racist sentiments among the Israeli population. According to an opinion poll by the Israeli Institute for Democracy published last week, 83 per cent of Jews in Israel believe that Israel's Jewish character is more important to them than it being a democracy. Meanwhile, 86 per cent believe that decisions on the future of the state should only be taken by a majority of the Jewish vote only. Some 62 per cent assert that as long as there is conflict with Arab countries, Tel Aviv should not take into consideration the positions of 1948 Palestinians, while 53 per cent say that the state has the right to encourage 1948 Palestinians to emigrate.

Another 76 per cent of Jews think the state should not allow first-degree relatives of Arab Israelis to come to Israel as part of any family reunification schemes. Also, 55 per cent want the state to allocate more funds to Jewish residential compounds than to Arab ones. Meanwhile, 46 per cent said they don't want an Arab worker fixing their house and 39 per cent did not want to use a foreign handyman.

A study by the dean of social studies at Haifa University, Sami Smouha, revealed that 65 per cent of Israelis refuse to share residential areas with 1948 Palestinians, while 67 per cent of 1948 Palestinians are willing to share living districts with Jews. According to the findings, 65 per cent of Jews believe that 1948 Palestinians represent a danger for Israel because of their natural growth, and the possibility of rebellion and civil disobedience in support of the plight of their brethren in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

A report, issued by the Citizen's Rights Society, an Israeli human rights group, revealed that hatred levels against Arabs have risen by 100 per cent. But it isn't only Jewish society that is racist against Arabs, so are the politicians. An article by Moshe Feiglin, a leading member of the ruling Likud Party, published in Maariv on 5 December notes: "The Arab is not the son of the desert but the father of the desert. The Arab brings desert with him wherever he goes ... The Arabs are rooted in the culture of thievery. The Arab mind suffers from lack of innovation; there is no good or bad in Arab culture, but only strong and weak."

There are indicators, however, that the increasing hatred is not only against the Arabs but everything foreign. A mass rally on 9 December in Tel Aviv attended by secular and religious figures called for expelling all foreigners from Israel's largest city under the motto, "We have become trash dumps because of foreign workers." Suzy Cohen, an activist in the city who organised the rally, did not hesitate in saying: "I don't care if they call me a Nazi, as long as we throw out the foreigners."

The Israeli anti-Zionist thinker Gideon Levy is upset with the rising racism, which he describes as "a cancer quickly spreading through Israel's body. From the southern most point of Eilat to Tabaria in the North, one Israeli city after another announces 'I am racist'," stated Levy. In an article published last week, he condemned the silence of the government and state apparatus regarding expressions of racism. "We are surrounded by silence. There is no government in Israel. There is no one to point out that Arab students have rights in their country," Levy wrote.

"Foreign workers from Africa are human beings we should respect," he continued, noting that Israel at the core is a country of "refugees and Holocaust survivors, yet discussion of the fate of foreign workers is limited to demonic solutions where Israelis are competing for the most gruesome remedies. Some suggest building a wall to prevent the illegal entry of foreign workers, while others suggest collective incarceration of foreigners or their expulsion. Meanwhile, the rabbis do not express any sympathy for these wretched foreigners who are part of the human race."

"It's a Palestinian Balfour Declaration," stated Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. He whispered the statement into the ear of one Likud Knesset member, not realising that the microphone of an Israeli TV channel was nearby and captured the statement on video and audio. Netanyahu's declaration relates to the gamble he has taken by asking the Palestinian Authority (PA) to recognise Israel as a Jewish state. He is asking the Palestinians to acknowledge Israel as Jewish in return for a temporary two-month freeze on settlements in the West Bank.

As Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom put it, the recognition of any Palestinian party of Israel's Jewishness means acceptance by this party of all steps, measures and positions that impose Jewish identity on this entity. Such statements by Israeli officials reveal that Palestinian acceptance of the Jewish character of the state of Israel carries catastrophic implications for the Palestinian people and their cause. To guarantee the Jewish character of Israel requires maintaining a Jewish demographic majority inside Israel, which means abandoning the right of return for Palestinian refugees and opens the door to the transfer of Palestinians that remain in Israel.

From here, the notion of exchanging citizens, which Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is excited about, becomes a possibility. The idea is to incorporate the triangle in which most 1948 Palestinians live into the Palestinian entity, and in exchange clusters of Jewish settlements in the West Bank would come under Israeli control. Lieberman's proposal is quickly becoming a focal point of Zionist consensus.

Palestinian acceptance of Israel's Jewish character implies agreeing with, or at least surrendering to, the laws passed by the Knesset in the past, present and future which guarantee the Judaisation of Palestinian territories. Admitting the Jewishness of the state is acceptance of racist laws, foremost among which is the "Law of Return", which gives any Jew anywhere in the world the right to immigrate to the land of Palestine and immediately be granted citizenship in the "state of Israel".

Recognition also entails tacit approval of the citizenship law that denies 1948 Palestinians the right to reunite with their families, if one of a married couple, for example, lives in the West Bank or Gaza Strip. What applies to the laws of return and citizenship is similar to that regarding the Law of Loyalty that the Israeli cabinet recently passed, which forces non-Jews to declare their loyalty to Israel "as a Jewish and democratic state".

And doubtless Palestinian recognition of Israel's Jewish identity will open the door for further discriminatory legislations, such as those announced by the leader of Shas and Minister of Interior Rabbi Eli Yishai, who intends to pass a law denying Israeli citizenship to anyone accused of committing a security offence. Yishai considers the participation of Arab Israeli Knesset member Haneen Al-Zubi in the Freedom Flotilla a "crime" that warrants revocation of citizenship.

Clearly, conceding Israel's Jewish identity would legitimise the laws and regulations that constrict the lives of 1948 Palestinians, most prominently the law preventing them from buying land that lies within "the orbit of Israeli land", which are the territories captured by Zionist militias on the eve of, during and after the 1948 War. Israel also wants the Palestinians to give credence to the legal bases that guarantee the destitution of the Palestinians of 1948. The Israeli Knesset has issued many laws barring these Palestinians from economic privileges, such as child support and university grants, under the pretext that they do not serve in the Israeli army.

For the ruling elite in Israel, Palestinian concession of the Jewish character of the state denotes, more than anything, the erasure of Palestinian collective memory in all senses. Note, in this regard, the statements of Israeli Minister of Education Gideon Saar. In interview with Israeli television, Saar said Palestinian school curricula should be rewritten and made compatible with Palestinian recognition of the Jewish character of Israel, including geography, history and religious education textbooks. Palestinian cities would be referred to by their Hebrew names, such as Bersheba, Tsefat, and Askalan.

At the same time, history lessons should no longer teach students the story of the Palestinian struggle, since recognising the Jewish nature of the state would mean that the Palestinians just happened to be a people living in Israel. In religious education, which Saar wants to completely overhaul, conceding Israel's Jewish identity would mean banning the teaching of Quranic verses Jews dislike.

Further, Saar believes the concession would force Palestinian authorities to strictly monitor Palestinian places of worship and media to prevent what he described as "instigation" against Israel. This comes from someone who frequently visited Rabbi Mordechai Eliyahu, a fanatic religious leader, before his death. Eliyahu had ordained that "All of the Palestinians must be killed; men, women, infants, and even their beasts."

Saar's ministry also pays $200,000 annually to a small school run by Rabbi Yizhak Shapiro, who lately published the book The King's Torah in which he detailed the "jurisprudence" sanctioning the killing of Palestinian infants and children. An investigative report published in Haaretz newspaper revealed that the administration of US President Barack Obama also funds Shapiro's school by giving tax breaks to American Jews who make donations to it.

Against this backdrop, the position of some Palestinian officials is disconcerting. Haaretz quoted Yasser Abed Rabbo, member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation's (PLO) Executive Committee, as saying that the PA is willing to recognise Israel as a Jewish state after the creation of a Palestinian state. Abed Rabbo was quick to deny the quote, but his statement came as no surprise to observers as he brokered the Geneva Accords with Israeli politicians under the rubric of which the right of return for Palestinian refugees was abandoned.

Never in history has one country required another country or entity to recognise its religious identity. By making this demand, Israel's intentions appear in clear relief: Palestinian recognition of Israel's Jewish character would presage the dissolution of the Palestinian national cause.