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.”

Inspired by Shakespeare’s Hamlet “To be or not to be that is the Question” I could not help but come up with a few alternative lines concerning the UN Bid

To go or not to go that is the question
Whether to suffer the measures of occupation
The outrageous checkpoints and wall of separation
Whether to indulge in futile negotiations
Or take our case to the United Nations
To go or not to go is no more the question

While the news of the Arab Spring is still flashing on the various news channels with the trial of Husni Mubarak and the unknown fate of Gadaffi, the Palestinians have been busy with their bid for recognition at the United Nations. The statements, discussions, panels, and numerous analysis and articles have covered the subject fully from all aspects; the pros and cons, the dilemmas and opportunities; the hope and despair, the disappointment and futility. Irrespective; to go or not to go is no more the question because the Palestinian Authority has made its decision to go since it has no other option to the stalemate in the peace process and the futile negotiations that have been going on for more than eighteen years.

However, it is clear that there is no consensus amongst the Palestinians regarding that initiative. How could the body that created the problem by unfairly partitioning Palestine in 1948 and who failed ever since to force Israel to implement any of the UN resolutions pertaining to the rights of the Palestinians, be credible and entrusted with the realization of the Palestinian dream of liberation, and independence . So it is understandable that many Palestinians, especially those in the diaspora and in the refugee camps would be worried that the inalienable rights of the Palestinians and especially the right of return will not be realized, or that the Palestinian state, if and when recognized, would be far removed from the dream of the Palestinians for restoring justice.

But why is Israel so much against the initiative? We need to remember that Israel never acknowledged that the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip, internationally recognized as occupied territory in 1967 were actually “occupied” by Israel. At the beginning, Israel considered them “administered” while later on, when the negotiations started after the Oslo Accords in 1993 they referred to them as "disputed territory" wherein Israel's claim would be as good as anyone else's, since it considered that those territories never had independence any way. Of course East Jerusalem was unilaterally annexed and was placed outside the discussion altogether. The scenario that Israel projected claimed that it acquired that territory fair and square in a war that the Arab countries waged against Israel in 1967. That, over and above the divine right that Israel always claims to have over the whole land of “Eretz Yisrael”. According to that belief, those territories are considered liberated and that Israel is the one making very hard concessions by giving the Palestinians a part of their land.

With that kind of logic, and with all the new realities that Israel has created on the ground through the government and army-supported settlements, it has become glaringly clear that it has no room for a Palestinian state along-side the state of Israel as the Palestinians were made to think in the Oslo Accords.

What is really puzzling and disappointing is the reaction of the USA administration. Should it be genuinely interested in peace and stability in the region as well as in the security of Israel which president Obama, like previous presidents, continues to emphasize as a priority in US policy, it should be the first to approve the principle of a Palestine State. Actually it is interesting to remember that Mr. Obama, in his speech at the United Nations in September 2010 said: “the world can have an agreement that will lead to the creation of a new Palestinian state next year.” He must have forgotten his words because without even seeing the details of the Palestinian bid, or trying to forge that agreement that he spoke about, Mr. Obama sent two of his envoys Mr. Dennis Ross, and Mr. David Hale to convince Mr. Abbas to change his mind. Why? Mr. Abbas has been humiliated enough when the negotiations were going on. Every time he would threaten not to return to the negotiating table, and rightly so, the US administration would intervene. For the sake of Peace the Palestinians had made more concessions than any party in this conflict. Mr. Obama himself must have had a taste of that humiliation when the Israeli prime minter Benjamin Netanyahu shunned him and turned down his request to stop the settlements so that the negotiations would be resumed. Mr. Obama did not only cave in, he reacted by promising more aid and a large attractive package of military aid to Israel, whereas for just contemplating to go to the UN, the right body to solve world problems –or for that matter to create them - the USA administration has been threatening to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority. What a shame. Is this the democracy that the USA has waged wars for? I hope that great country will continue to be a haven for so many oppressed people who have found in it refuge and a great opportunity for a peaceful and a secure life. Dare we hope??

To go or not to go to the United Nations is no more the question.

As we commemorate forty four years of Israeli occupation this week, France comes up with a new/old initiative of an international conference to be followed by negotiations. If this is going to be another Madrid, thank you Mr. Sarkozy, but no thank you. The memories of Madrid followed by Oslo and the euphoria of the withdrawal of the Israeli troops from the large towns only to return again with further brutality have turned into an ongoing nightmare.

With all the futile negotiations for the last 17 years, what will the negotiations following that conference lead to? Further stalling, further realities on the ground, further onslaught on Jerusalem and further intransigence on the Israeli side. Mr. Netanyahu who insisted on resuming negotiations without pre-conditions, himself, set seven conditions: No to the 1967 borders, no negotiations on Jerusalem, no return of refugees, no dismantling of settlements, no withdrawal from the Jordan valley; no peace without recognition of the Jewishness of the State, and no arms for the Palestinian State. We heard them all as he addressed the American Congress with 29 standing ovations; something he doesn’t get even at home in his own Knesset.

Unless there is a new strategy and new peace brokers, there is nothing that is going to make this conference bring about different results? One of the big flaws of the Oslo accords was that the core issues:- final borders, Jerusalem, settlements and refugees were all deferred to the last stages. And when they reach them Israel balks. So are the Palestinians expected to accept another merry go round? It will be suicidal. Unless France and the European countries take the lead at the United Nations and join all the countries who have already expressed support for the creation of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders, all this talk about an international conference and further negotiations will be futile. We have already been there, and as the Arabic saying goes, “a person cannot be bitten twice from the serpent’s pit.”

If it were possible to change the reality of Palestine over night in 1948, it certainly will be possible to get the Israeli forces and their settlers to withdraw from the occupied territories over night. The changes that we are seeing in the Middle should be a lesson that no oppression or injustice can last for ever. So will Mr. Sarkozy and the Europeans usher us into a new era of justice and peace, or will they pull us down into another whirlwind?

We are damned if we do, we are damned if we don’t. One more time the Israeli lopsided logic prevails. The first official reaction of Israel to the Palestinian reconciliation was that it will be an obstacle to peace. Ironic as it may sound, it was only a short while ago that Israel used the Fateh-Hamas in-fighting as a justification for not moving ahead with the peace process. Despite all the settlement building and the continuous onslaught on Jerusalem, Israel insists on giving the impression that it is actually offering us peace on a silver platter, and it is we, the Palestinians, who have fouled it all up.

Unlike last week, when the press of the whole world was busy with the Royal wedding, and I must admit it was a nice break for all of us to relax on that Friday morning watching a real fairy tale. The young couple, William and Kate were really lucky to be in the limelight for the whole week end. Nobody would have bothered about a royal wedding when the Breaking News flashed “Bin Laden is Dead”. Ten years after the 9/11 Mr. Obama succeeded in achieving what his predecessor had failed to achieve. And it seemed to me that Mr. Obama has certainly guaranteed a good start for his election campaign, especially when his popularity had been losing ground lately.

Ever since I heard Mr. Obama’s inaugural speech in 2009 in which he stressed the importance of justice more than once, I have been hoping that the resolve for bringing about justice to our Palestinian people, whose cause has lingered not only for one decade but for more than five decades, will bear fruit. But what happened was contrary to our expectation; it was the USA administration that has been blocking any chances for that justice to prevail even when it was glaringly clear that Israel has been the perpetrator of this grave injustice inflicted on the Palestinians ever since 1948.

For us in the occupied territories the best breaking news was the reconciliation between Fateh and Hamas. A long awaited demand of the Palestinian people so that we can have a united front to deal with all the challenges of the Israeli military occupation. We have already made enough concessions since the signing of the Oslo accords in 1993, and settled for relative justice by accepting the establishment of a Palestinian state on the 1967 borders (22% of historic Palestine.) It is so illogical to demand of Hamas to recognize the state of Israel, when Hamas itself is not a state, but a faction in an occupied territory that has not even been recognized yet as a state. However, Hamas was very clear in its announcement during the ceremony of the signing of the reconciliation agreement, that it will agree to the establishment of the Palestinian state within the 1967 borders.

Mr. Netanyahu is already touring Europe and the USA to foul any plans for the establishment of a Palestinian State. Will Mr. Obama adhere to the values and morals of democracy, justice and peace that he calls for, or will he cave in once again, and have his election campaign justify his silence regarding another round of injustice?

Dare we hope for another breaking news announcing the establishment of a Palestinian State in September?

The vote to accept Israel into the Organization for Economic Co-operation and development (OECD) while it continues to violate Palestinian Human rights and to flout UN resolutions, indicates that something is very wrong in the values of the world community. But then politics have never had moral values, and that is why the world is in such a mess.

While the siege on Gaza has been allowed to continue for over 3 years simply because Hamas won the elections in a democratic process, and while further sanctions are being considered against Iran for its nuclear activities, Israel continues to enjoy a free hand in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. It also enjoys the privilege of not signing the non-proliferation agreement nor having its nuclear facilities inspected. Once again Israel is being rewarded.

Today Israel is celebrating Jerusalem Day according to the Jewish calendar. It is the day Israel unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem to West Jerusalem after the June 1967 war as “The Eternal United Capital of Israel.”. Until 1948 West Jerusalem had a Jewish minority as it was the residential section of Palestinians who were evicted from their homes or had to run away out of fear for their lives after the massacre of Deir Yaseen. As if dispossessing the Jerusalemites in 1948 was not enough, Israel now continues to chase them out of their homes and property in East Jerusalem, where they have taken refuge or were they had always been living . Under different pretexts, and by unjust laws created by Israel and applied by its own court system, Palestinians are left helpless and homeless.

Our gift on this special day came through the announcement of the establishment of two Israeli settlements within East Jerusaelm One behind the YMCA and the American Consulate, and the other in the Old City near Al-Aqsa mosque. A special report by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) was issued today as well, indicating that Israel has already confiscated 24,500 dunums of Palestinian land which is the size of one third of East Jerusalem. (4 dunums = 1 acre) During 2009 alone, Israel has demolished 80 homes leaving around 300 of their Palestinian inhabitants homeless. That is aside from the ongoing onslaught on the Sheikh Jarrah quarter and the Bustan area in Silwan.

Mr. Obama, in the meantime sends us harsh messages not to flout the indirect talks. It is yet beyond me why on earth did we Palestinians accept to pursue those negotiations when every member of the Palestinian Authority and the negotiating team had so adamantly announced earlier that there will be no negotiations unless the settlement activity stops. Of course Mr. Obama himself had to bow to Israel when its prime minister simply ignored the request, so did the Palestinian Authority think that they would be up to that challenge? Not Surprisingly, such a serious decision was not taken by a unanimous PLO vote but by a simple majority.

On the other hand why did we need the blessing of the Arab countries when they had already offered Israel a perfect deal in the 2002 summit in Beirut whereby all Arab countries were willing to recognize Israel and have diplomatic relations with it provided it ends the occupation. Had Israel been interested in peace, it would have jumped at this offer. That was a generous offer, and the American administration and Mr. Obama should have seized that opportunity to pressure Israel, instead of wasting more time, energy and money on Mr. Mitchell’s shuttle trips. Whether the talks are direct or indirect, they will continue to be futile as long as the component of justice is not there and as long as the right of return is not on the agenda. Over and above, they will be futile as long as Israel continues to be rewarded morally and financially for the dispossession of the Palestinians, and its effect on the whole region.