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.”

Some two-thirds of the Jewish public think that from Israel's standpoint it is impossible to go on indefinitely with the current state of relations between Israel and the Palestinians. A similar amount of Jewish citizens think that among the most urgent issues on Israel's agenda is the government's attempt to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Yet a large majority of this public does not believe that the Annapolis conference will significantly advance the chances of reaching a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace, or even achieve a basic clarification of the differences between the two sides. Given these low expectations, it is no surprise that only a small minority reports steadily following the preparations for the conference.

The low level of expectations for the conference is undoubtedly linked to the belief that there is a wide gap between the two sides' positions. A considerable majority of the Jewish public opposes transferring Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians so they can serve as the capital of Palestine, even if such a transfer comes in exchange for a permanent peace agreement. And with regard to the refugee issue, there is a wide, across-the-board consensus that Israel should not agree to the return of a single refugee to Israel itself. The survey also found that among the Jewish public, there are more opponents than supporters of handing the United States the arbitrating authority to determine what concessions each side should make to enable reaching an agreement - that is, should the talks reach a dead end.

But most of all, it appears the Jewish public does not trust its government. Across the whole political spectrum, an overwhelming majority thinks Ehud Olmert and his government are not strong enough to sign a peace agreement with the Palestinians in Israel's name, assuming such an agreement would entail substantial Israeli concessions. Those are the main findings of the Peace Index that was carried out from Monday to Wednesday, 8-10 October.

About two-thirds - 65 percent - of the Jewish public think that from Israel's standpoint it is impossible to continue indefinitely in the current state of relations with the Palestinians (29.5 percent say it is possible to go on this way), and 62 percent consider the Palestinian issue to be the most urgent or moderately urgent on the government's agenda (35 percent see it as not urgent moderately or not urgent at all). Interestingly, when Jewish Israelis are asked to assess the Palestinian viewpoint on continuing the current situation, the data are quite similar - 62 percent say it is impossible while 26 percent believe it is possible.

As noted, though, a majority does not expect the upcoming Annapolis conference to bring about a shift - only 39 percent of the entire Jewish public see a chance that it will enable the sides to clarify the disagreements between them (57 percent see no such chance), and an identical number of respondents believes the conference can increase the chances of reaching a permanent peace agreement (56 percent believe it cannot).

A segmentation of the responses with regard to voting preferences reveals that Meretz and Labor voters are the most optimistic (62.5 percent), immediately followed by Kadima voters at 54 percent. Forty percent of Shas voters believe in the conference's chances for success while only about one-third of voters for the rest of the parties are optimistic, and only about one-quarter of Likud voters - the most pessimistic about the conference - think it can contribute to achieving a peace agreement.

At the same time, about 60 percent think the participation of Arab states - such as Egypt, Jordan or Saudi Arabia - could raise the conference's chances of resulting in significant achievements. Interestingly, only a 30-percent minority would like to see Hamas representatives participate in the conference. In other words, at present the Jewish public does not perceive Hamas as a desirable partner for dialogue, even if it changes its positions and agrees to engage in direct talks with Israel.

The low expectations for the conference appear to be the reason why only 20 percent reported that they followed the preparations for the event regularly, while about half said they follow them sometimes and 29 percent reported not following them at all.

The data show that the public's readiness for concessions in the framework of such a conference is not high. Some 59 percent oppose transferring the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem to Palestinian sovereignty so they can serve as the capital of Palestine, in exchange for a peace agreement (33 percent support such a move). Even firmer is the Jewish public's position on the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel in the context of a permanent peace settlement: 87 percent are not prepared for the return of even a single refugee, 6 percent are prepared for the return of up to 100,000 and 3 percent are prepared for whatever number is decided.

We asked: if in the course of the conference it transpired that the gaps between the two sides' positions were responsible for their not reaching an agreement, would it be desirable for the United States to play the role of arbitrator and determine what concessions each side should make to bring about an agreement? Fifty-two percent opposed allocating this role to the United States while 41 percent supported it - even though our past findings have repeatedly shown that the Jewish public perceives the United States as an "honest broker."

Beyond the perception that the differences between the sides are too great to arbitrate and beyond the unwillingness to make concessions on issues the Palestinians will clearly raise as requisites for reaching a settlement (Jerusalem and the refugees), it seems that one of the main reasons for the Jewish public's low expectations for the conference is the belief shared by a vast majority - 77 percent - that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his government are too weak to sign a peace agreement with the Palestinians in Israel's name, especially if such an agreement would entail significant concessions. A segmentation of views on the strength of both the government and the prime minister shows that there is indeed a connection between these assessments and voting in the elections. But even among voters for Kadima - the prime minister's party - only 27 percent consider the government strong enough to take a strategic step and only 20 percent of voters for Labor,the senior partner in the coalition, think it is strong enough. In other words, the assessment that the current government is too weak is widespread among a majority of voters for all the Jewish parties.

On a different issue, we looked into whether or not there is public support to replace soldiers with civilians from private security firms at the crossing points between Israel and the West Bank. It turns out that a large majority of the Jewish public - 69 percent - consider such a decision as unwise and only 29 percent are in favor. This seems to indicate that the Jewish public has trust in the IDF only. Interestingly, there was not a single party (including Meretz) for which a majority of voters supports a decision to civilianize the crossings.

In the Arab sector, this time, too, clear disparities were found between the positions of the Arab public and the Jewish public. Unlike the Jewish public, which considers a continuation of the current situation to be impossible from the standpoint of both sides, a majority of the Arab public (47 percent vs. 42 percent) thinks that from the Israeli standpoint it is possible to sustain the current state of relations with the Palestinians indefinitely. However, a majority of the Arab public sees a continuation of the current situation from the Palestinian standpoint as impossible - 51 percent vs. 41 percent, who believe it is possible.

The optimism among the Israeli Arab public about the possible results of the Annapolis conference is slightly greater than that of the Jewish public. Some 37.5 percent think it could achieve a basic clarification of the sides' disagreements and just about the same percentage think it will not result in such a clarification; 46 percent say the conference could increase the chances of reaching a permanent peace agreement compared to 37.5 percent who do not think so. At the same time, the extent of personal interest in the preparations for the conference is similar in the two publics, and so are assessments about the participation of Arab states: 62 percent of the Arab public (60 percent of the Jewish public) think such participation can contribute to improving the results.

As expected, in the Arab public a majority, albeit not a large one - 53 percent - favors including Hamas in next month's Annapolis conference. As is the case for the Jewish public, there is also a majority (63 percent) that favors transferring Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods to Palestinian sovereignty and allowing the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel (71 percent). Unlike the position of the Israeli Jewish public, a majority of the Arab public (53 percent) favors giving the United States the authority to determine the concessions each side should make in case the talks reach a dead end. Indeed, in comparison to the Jewish public, a higher rate of the Arab public sees the Olmert government as strong, but here, too, the majority - 54.5 percent - regards it as too weak to make major concessions in Israel's name.

As for civilianizing the crossings, a majority among the Israeli Arab public also opposes this decision - 50 percent vs. 28 percent. Very possibly, though, the Arab public opposes this civilianization for completely different reasons than the Jewish public, in part because of their general opposition to checkpoints.

Indexes:

General Peace Index: 54.2 (Jewish Sample: 48.3)

Oslo Index: 35.1 (Jewish Sample: 32.3)

General Negotiations: 51.6;(Jewish Sample: 49.2)

The Peace Index Project is conducted at the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research and the Evens Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution of Tel Aviv University, headed by Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann. The telephone interviews were conducted by the B.I. Cohen Institute of Tel Aviv University on 8-10 October, 2007, and included 580 interviewees who represent the adult Jewish and Arab population of Israel (including the territories and the kibbutzim). The sampling error for a sample of this size is 4.5 percent.

For the survey data see: http://www.tau.ac.il/peace

Some two-thirds of the Jewish public think that from Israel's standpoint it is impossible to go on indefinitely with the current state of relations between Israel and the Palestinians. A similar amount of Jewish citizens think that among the most urgent issues on Israel's agenda is the government's attempt to reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians. Yet a large majority of this public does not believe that the Annapolis conference will significantly advance the chances of reaching a permanent Israeli-Palestinian peace, or even achieve a basic clarification of the differences between the two sides. Given these low expectations, it is no surprise that only a small minority reports steadily following the preparations for the conference.

The low level of expectations for the conference is undoubtedly linked to the belief that there is a wide gap between the two sides' positions. A considerable majority of the Jewish public opposes transferring Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods to the Palestinians so they can serve as the capital of Palestine, even if such a transfer comes in exchange for a permanent peace agreement. And with regard to the refugee issue, there is a wide, across-the-board consensus that Israel should not agree to the return of a single refugee to Israel itself. The survey also found that among the Jewish public, there are more opponents than supporters of handing the United States the arbitrating authority to determine what concessions each side should make to enable reaching an agreement - that is, should the talks reach a dead end.

But most of all, it appears the Jewish public does not trust its government. Across the whole political spectrum, an overwhelming majority thinks Ehud Olmert and his government are not strong enough to sign a peace agreement with the Palestinians in Israel's name, assuming such an agreement would entail substantial Israeli concessions. Those are the main findings of the Peace Index that was carried out from Monday to Wednesday, 8-10 October.

Impossible situation

About two-thirds - 65 percent - of the Jewish public think that from Israel's standpoint it is impossible to continue indefinitely in the current state of relations with the Palestinians (29.5 percent say it is possible to go on this way), and 62 percent consider the Palestinian issue to be the most urgent or moderately urgent on the government's agenda (35 percent see it as not urgent moderately or not urgent at all). Interestingly, when Jewish Israelis are asked to assess the Palestinian viewpoint on continuing the current situation, the data are quite similar - 62 percent say it is impossible while 26 percent believe it is possible.

As noted, though, a majority does not expect the upcoming Annapolis conference to bring about a shift - only 39 percent of the entire Jewish public see a chance that it will enable the sides to clarify the disagreements between them (57 percent see no such chance), and an identical number of respondents believes the conference can increase the chances of reaching a permanent peace agreement (56 percent believe it cannot).

A segmentation of the responses with regard to voting preferences reveals that Meretz and Labor voters are the most optimistic (62.5 percent), immediately followed by Kadima voters at 54 percent. Forty percent of Shas voters believe in the conference's chances for success while only about one-third of voters for the rest of the parties are optimistic, and only about one-quarter of Likud voters - the most pessimistic about the conference - think it can contribute to achieving a peace agreement.

At the same time, about 60 percent think the participation of Arab states - such as Egypt, Jordan or Saudi Arabia - could raise the conference's chances of resulting in significant achievements. Interestingly, only a 30-percent minority would like to see Hamas representatives participate in the conference. In other words, at present the Jewish public does not perceive Hamas as a desirable partner for dialogue, even if it changes its positions and agrees to engage in direct talks with Israel.

The low expectations for the conference appear to be the reason why only 20 percent reported that they followed the preparations for the event regularly, while about half said they follow them sometimes and 29 percent reported not following them at all.

No concessions

The data show that the public's readiness for concessions in the framework of such a conference is not high. Some 59 percent oppose transferring the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem to Palestinian sovereignty so they can serve as the capital of Palestine, in exchange for a peace agreement (33 percent support such a move). Even firmer is the Jewish public's position on the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel in the context of a permanent peace settlement: 87 percent are not prepared for the return of even a single refugee, 6 percent are prepared for the return of up to 100,000 and 3 percent are prepared for whatever number is decided.

We asked: if in the course of the conference it transpired that the gaps between the two sides' positions were responsible for their not reaching an agreement, would it be desirable for the United States to play the role of arbitrator and determine what concessions each side should make to bring about an agreement? Fifty-two percent opposed allocating this role to the United States while 41 percent supported it - even though our past findings have repeatedly shown that the Jewish public perceives the United States as an "honest broker."

Beyond the perception that the differences between the sides are too great to arbitrate and beyond the unwillingness to make concessions on issues the Palestinians will clearly raise as requisites for reaching a settlement (Jerusalem and the refugees), it seems that one of the main reasons for the Jewish public's low expectations for the conference is the belief shared by a vast majority - 77 percent - that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his government are too weak to sign a peace agreement with the Palestinians in Israel's name, especially if such an agreement would entail significant concessions. A segmentation of views on the strength of both the government and the prime minister shows that there is indeed a connection between these assessments and voting in the elections. But even among voters for Kadima - the prime minister's party - only 27 percent consider the government strong enough to take a strategic step and only 20 percent of voters for Labor,the senior partner in the coalition, think it is strong enough. In other words, the assessment that the current government is too weak is widespread among a majority of voters for all the Jewish parties.

On a different issue, we looked into whether or not there is public support to replace soldiers with civilians from private security firms at the crossing points between Israel and the West Bank. It turns out that a large majority of the Jewish public - 69 percent - consider such a decision as unwise and only 29 percent are in favor. This seems to indicate that the Jewish public has trust in the IDF only. Interestingly, there was not a single party (including Meretz) for which a majority of voters supports a decision to civilianize the crossings.

Israeli Arabs: more optimistic

In the Arab sector, this time, too, clear disparities were found between the positions of the Arab public and the Jewish public. Unlike the Jewish public, which considers a continuation of the current situation to be impossible from the standpoint of both sides, a majority of the Arab public (47 percent vs. 42 percent) thinks that from the Israeli standpoint it is possible to sustain the current state of relations with the Palestinians indefinitely. However, a majority of the Arab public sees a continuation of the current situation from the Palestinian standpoint as impossible - 51 percent vs. 41 percent, who believe it is possible.

The optimism among the Israeli Arab public about the possible results of the Annapolis conference is slightly greater than that of the Jewish public. Some 37.5 percent think it could achieve a basic clarification of the sides' disagreements and just about the same percentage think it will not result in such a clarification; 46 percent say the conference could increase the chances of reaching a permanent peace agreement compared to 37.5 percent who do not think so. At the same time, the extent of personal interest in the preparations for the conference is similar in the two publics, and so are assessments about the participation of Arab states: 62 percent of the Arab public (60 percent of the Jewish public) think such participation can contribute to improving the results.

As expected, in the Arab public a majority, albeit not a large one - 53 percent - favors including Hamas in next month's Annapolis conference. As is the case for the Jewish public, there is also a majority (63 percent) that favors transferring Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods to Palestinian sovereignty and allowing the return of Palestinian refugees to Israel (71 percent). Unlike the position of the Israeli Jewish public, a majority of the Arab public (53 percent) favors giving the United States the authority to determine the concessions each side should make in case the talks reach a dead end. Indeed, in comparison to the Jewish public, a higher rate of the Arab public sees the Olmert government as strong, but here, too, the majority - 54.5 percent - regards it as too weak to make major concessions in Israel's name.

As for civilianizing the crossings, a majority among the Israeli Arab public also opposes this decision - 50 percent vs. 28 percent. Very possibly, though, the Arab public opposes this civilianization for completely different reasons than the Jewish public, in part because of their general opposition to checkpoints.

Indexes:

General Peace Index: 54.2 (Jewish Sample: 48.3)

Oslo Index: 35.1 (Jewish Sample: 32.3)

General Negotiations: 51.6;(Jewish Sample: 49.2)

The Peace Index Project is conducted at the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research and the Evens Program in Mediation and Conflict Resolution of Tel Aviv University, headed by Prof. Ephraim Yaar and Prof. Tamar Hermann. The telephone interviews were conducted by the B.I. Cohen Institute of Tel Aviv University on 8-10 October, 2007, and included 580 interviewees who represent the adult Jewish and Arab population of Israel (including the territories and the kibbutzim). The sampling error for a sample of this size is 4.5 percent.