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.”

Yesterday's speech by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) was not enough to make headlines. Everything has already been said and known in advance. Nonetheless, Abbas' speech was a masterpiece of an experienced politician who on the one hand knows how to take advantage of the stage he was given in order to gain support for his domestic politics, and on the other hand send out a calming message to the Israeli public and international community.

In his speech, Abbas referred to Yasser Arafat's historical 1974 speech at the United Nations and offering the 'Abu Ammar' olive branch, saying the Palestinians want peace. Abu Mazen reiterated the promise that the Palestinians are still offering the olive branch and joked that he hopes the branch will not be taken from their hands. He seemed confident, and as usual interrupted his speech many times with entertaining comments. But, unlike Arafat's famous 1974 speech that was full of pathos, Abbas did not strap a weapons belt to his hips and instead emphasized again and again that the Palestinians are not seeking violence.

The Palestinian Authority chairman turned to his people and requested that every move, procession, march and activity will be carried out with peace. "Do not give the Israelis an opportunity and do not be dragged behind the Israeli attempts to lead us to violence. Every military act r any act of violence will only harm our efforts." Many Israelis knew to criticize Abbas' apparent weakness over the past few years. But making such a demand of his public shows a prominent feature that indicates his strong hold on Fatah and the West Bank, and displays a different leadership to that which the Israelis were used to during Arafat's time. Abbas is not afraid of making it clear to the people of Fatah or the Palestinian territories that "the armed struggle", one of the Fatah's milestones, is undesirable for the 2011 model of a Palestinian state.

Indeed the Palestinian Authority chairman does not suffice with declarations alone. He already instructed Palestinian security organizations to prevent residents from engaging in violence with Israeli targets. He made it clear, as usual, that even if 100% of the Palestinian security forces efforts to stop violence are registered, it is unlikely that 100% of them will be successful.

The additional calming message to the Israeli public was that the Palestinian Authority intends to return to negotiations after immediately after achieving UN recognition in order to reach a peace agreement. Will they agree to return to negotiations even without freezing settlement building? Abbas did not address this issue and it is unlikely that he will agree to do so. In that sense it appears that one should not expect a breakthrough in negotiations over a final settlement following the UN vote.

In light of many rumors and reports, Abbas clarified that the Palestinian Authority intends to approach the UN Security Council requesting full UN membership and thus recognition of a Palestinian state. This is despite the fact he admits that a U.S. veto awaits him at the Security Council. His decision is accompanied by a clear indication to the Washington government and even more so to the Palestinian people, that he is not afraid of confronting the White House.

It appears that this has been one of the central problems in the Middle East peace process for the past two years: neither of the leaders –Israeli nor Palestinian – recoil from confrontation with the United States and U.S. President Barack Obama.

In the domestic arena, Abbas' declared move earns him numerous credit points among the Palestinians. He comes across as a strong leader that stands his ground and stands for the Palestinians' interests. He will also be listed in Palestinian history books as the elective who achieved international recognition for a Palestinian state.

Abbas did not forget to sting Hamas during his speech yesterday. Hamas has been observing the almost helpless (so far) developments and has been making meaningless criticism over Abu Mazen's move. Hamas also understand that the days of celebration planned in the West Bank from September 21 will further strengthen the statuses of Fatah, Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, while that of Hamas will only weaken. The question is, as always, whether Abu Mazen's strengthening status will survive the numerous days after the residents of Gaza and especially those of the West Bank, discover that nothing has changed on the ground.

Abbas' decision to turn to the Security Council still does not finally clarify whether he intends to simultaneously turn to the UN General Assembly for a vote there. If he does not do this, the debate at the Security Council is likely to be postponed for long months without tangible accomplishments that he will be able to present to the Palestinian public upon his return to Ramallah. On the other hand, turning to the General Assembly whilst the request is still being debated at the Security Council is likely to dissuade some of the states from supporting the request to recognize a state.

Despite his decisive and promising speech, the Palestinian Authority chairman admits he is taking upon himself a gamble. The public of the West Bank, who like in other places in the Arab world has reached an important and perhaps critical stage of making leadership decisions, wants to turn to the United Nations. But in the end that same public is likely to turn against it and not only against Israel, if the request for full membership in the Security Council or General Assembly ends up perhaps with a Palestinian state, but one which stays within the protocols of the United Nations only, for many years to come.

In its latest campaign under the slogan "I am your partner. Are you my partner?" the Geneva Initiative, which promotes a model agreement as the basis for peace between Israel and the Palestians, has featured a number of senior Palestinians - but it turns out that the two most senior officials, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, did not give their permission for the use of their likenesses.

Furthermore, in the past several days, through an intermediary, Fayyad has asked that his picture be removed from the Geneva Initiative's campaign. Abbas, who has been in Washington and North Africa over the past week, has not asked that the campaign stop using his likeness and has not withdrawn his participation in the campaign, but Fayyad, who was in the West Bank at the time, has sought to have his picture removed.

Palestinian sources said Fayyad views the campaign as "too Israeli" and tilted in favor of Israel, but they made it clear that it wasn't a case of Fayyad not wanting to be a peace partner, but rather that in his view the campaign presented the Palestinians as responsible for the fact that there was no peace, something Fayyad said was not the case. The Palestinian prime minister's view, according to the sources, was that the absence of peace is the Israeli government's doing. Fayyad also reportedly noted that it wasn't clear to him why the campaign did not also feature Israeli figures addressing the Palestinian public.

Activists for the Geneva Initiative refused to comment on the issue other than saying that the campaign spoke for itself. In addition to an office in Tel Aviv, the Geneva Initiative has a Ramallah office that was apparently supposed to secure the consent of the Palestinian leaders to use their likenesses in the campaign.

The Geneva Initiative campaign is patterned on the Facebook social networking approach, but unlike Facebook in which individuals ask others to be their "friends," the campaign presents prominent Palestinians in a "partner request" as wanting to be "partners" in the peace process.

Among those featured in video clips in support of the campaign are the head of the Palestinian negotiating team, Saeb Erekat; Yasser Abed Rabbo, secretary general of the Palestine Liberation Organization executive committee who is taking the lead on the Palestinian side for the Geneva Initiative; senior Fatah official Sufian Abu Zaida and Palestinian foreign minister Riad al-Malki. On its Facebook page, the Geneva Initiative included the pictures of Abbas and Fayyad.

Owners of the smuggling tunnels bordering the Gaza Strip and Egypt have been suffering from financial problems due to their tunnels' inactivity, according to Palestinian sources.

The reason, it turns out, actually stems from the overall success of smuggling tunnels in Gaza. Hamas has recently set up 'legal' tunnels, which they use to smuggle various merchandise. As a result, existing, non-Hamas run tunnels are suffering financially.

The Hamas tunnels are used to bring in merchandise intended for sale in markets, such as food products and home appliances. Palestinians believe that the overflow of goods caused a complete smuggling standstill in dozens of underground channels. Moreover, work on digging additional tunnels has also stopped.

The tunnel owners explain that the increase in merchandise in Gaza made prices sharply decrease, which seriously reduced the earnings from the 'illegal' smuggling industry. One of the tunnel owners told a news agency that he is waiting for a reasonable business offer to come along, because at the moment it isn't profitable for him to open the channel to smuggling.

In 2008, the smuggling tunnel trade flourished due to the Israeli blockade on Gaza, and was also strong in 2009 in spite of growing Egyptian surveillance of the tunnels, which endangered diggers and smugglers. Since June of 2007, over 100 Palestinians lost their lives in tunnel collapses.

The Hamas-run tunnels, which are deemed legal by the government, are now experiencing continuous activity. Under Hamas rule, hundreds of underground channels have been dug between Gaza and Egypt.

The recent increase in smuggled goods in Gaza caused many factories to renew activity. Overall, if judging by the two most smuggled products - gasoline and cement - tunnel activity has actually caused Gaza to experience an economic reawakening.

Ultimately, the tunnel owners' crisis came from being overly successful. "The last two weeks were the worst in the smuggling tunnel trade since the blockade in June of 2007," said a tunnel owner.

The German mediator brokering a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit will begin a new round of talks next week, a source in the Palestinian Islamist group said Wednesday.

The comments came shortly after Hamas reportedly rejected the latest offer from Israel to free hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in return for its corporal, who has been held in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip for more than three years.

Al-Arabiya television network, relying on Hamas sources, has reported that the Hamas political leadership had decided to turn down the latest Israeli offer on a prisoner exchange.

Al-Arabiya said the leadership, under Damascus-based Khaled Meshal, came to the decision after 12 hours of deliberations following Israel's refusal to release several senior leaders as well as increasing the number of prisoners that Israel is seeking to exile upon their release. Hamas, however, is officially denying the television report.

The Al-Arabiya report said Hamas sources were claiming that the latest Israeli position reflects backtracking on what was agreed to previously. Hamas officials have stressed that the organization has no intention of agreeing to a mass expulsion of Palestinian prisoners, while Israel is demanding the exile of about 120 out of 450 prisoners to be freed.

Osama Hamdan, a Hamas leader abroad, said negotiations were still ongoing, adding in comments to the German news agency DPA that his organization is still in contact with the mediator.

Ayman Taha, the Hamas spokesman in Gaza, also reacted to the news reports saying that his organization has not yet come to a final decision on the Israeli offer, and other Hamas officials such as Mohammed Nasser also denied that Hamas had rejected Israel's offer.

In an earlier statement, Hamdan hinted at Hamas' intention to kidnap additional Israeli soldiers if Israel doesn't accept the group's demands. Al-Arabiya claims that a high-ranking Hamas political official was the source of the station's report. The source reportedly said consent to the Israeli proposal would ultimately damage Hamas' standing.

Two days ago, a delegation of three senior Hamas officials left for Egypt to discuss the Israeli position on a prisoner exchange. The head of the delegation, Mahmoud al-Zahar, said after meetings with Egyptian security officials that he and his delegation would continue their round of consultations with Hamas' political leadership, most notably by meeting Khaled Meshal in Syria.

Hamas is awaiting the return to the region of the German mediator, Gerhard Conrad, to give him the group's official response. It appears that Hamas will turn down the Israeli offer in the hope that Israel will reduce the number of prisoners who would be expelled and in an effort to have the list of those released include prisoners such as Fatah strongman Marwan Barghouti.

On Tuesday immediately following Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's meeting in Cairo with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Egypt?s foreign minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, said Egypt does not support the expulsion of prisoners or Israel?s refusal to release other prisoners.

The foreign minister was seen as trying to embarrass Hamas into rejecting the Israeli offer, which is not viewed favorably by the Egyptians because completion of the deal would strengthen Hamas.