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.”

It could all lead to nothing but then again it could perhaps help bring back some form of direct or indirect Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. This is the shortcut explanation of otherwise lengthy and elaborate talks that Egyptian and Palestinian officials give in reply to questions on the rationale behind the new wave of diplomatic meetings and the new sense of optimism that is being officially described as a "possible" resumption of Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations suspended since late 2008.

On the eve of 2009 President Hosni Mubarak received Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Following the meeting that took over two hours, Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit announced a "new tone" of talk by Netanyahu. And despite the fact that the top Egyptian diplomat declined to qualify Netanyahu's political posture in Cairo last weekend as indicative of a qualitative change in his previously intransigent positions, Abul-Gheit explicitly said, "the Israeli prime minister wants to move ahead."

A few days later, on Monday in Sharm El-Sheikh, Mubarak received his frequent visitor: Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. On the same day he received his closest Arab partner in promoting the resumption of Palestinian- Israeli peace talks: King Abdullah of Jordan. The announcements made at the end of the two consecutive meetings by the foreign ministers of Mubarak and Abdullah, as well as by Abbas himself, provided no clear sound bites to indicate a near resumption of peace talks, despite the lack of the previous firm Palestinian condition of a full freeze of illegal Israeli settlement building in occupied Palestinian territories. They also failed to indicate a continued determination to stick to this condition which was in fact included in the roadmap, the bible of the peace process for the past seven years.

A "yes and no" answer was given by the three officials to practically every basic question especially those on expectations for the resumption of direct or indirect negotiations. Abbas said that his position conditioning the resumption of peace talks to the halt of settlement building is "well-established". However, he added that he was not opposed to the convocation of any meetings "in principle".

Abul-Gheit and his Jordanian counterpart Nasser Joudeh said the "challenges ahead" of the resumption of peace talks should not be underestimated. However, they stopped short of saying that Arabs condition the resumption of peace talks strictly on overcoming those challenges, especially those related to Israel's rejection of a full settlement freeze and the status of East Jerusalem occupied by Israel in 1967.

It seems now that the future of the Palestinian-Israeli peace talks would be determined primarily by US intervention. According to Egyptian, Palestinian and other Arab diplomats, if Washington can get Netanyahu to slightly expand a limited settlement freeze which he announced three months ago for a total 10-month period, then talks could possibly be resumed in the first quarter of this year. The US, the same diplomats add, would need to provide a letter of guarantees to the Palestinians that should Netanyahu fail to cooperate on administering constructive peace talks within two years, it would then support the establishment of a Palestinian state within the borders of 1967.

Abul-Gheit, along with General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman, are planning an extensive round of talks with US officials in Washington early next week. Joudeh is also planning a parallel trip to the US capital. The objective is to get the Americans and the rest of the international community, represented by the Quartet, on board.

"It is very tricky, obviously. We could go into a process that fails to deliver as was the case before, but the other alternative now is to sit and wait for the [US President Barack] Obama administration to get Israel to abide by a full settlement freeze and to commit to negotiate in good faith," said an Egyptian diplomat.

The wait for Obama to act seems to be falling out of favour, especially in Cairo and Amman. Both capitals, according to their diplomats, seem to be concerned over the cost of the freeze of the peace process and the political weight Abbas shoulders in the face of his opposition from Hamas.

Egyptian and Jordanian diplomats explain that the peace process was the core of the political platform in dealing with the resistance- based platform that Hamas adopts. They add that the all but announced total failure of this process means simply that Abbas has been defeated.

Moreover, Egyptian diplomats acknowledge that Washington has all but conditioned its support for Cairo's attempt to strike a Palestinian national unity deal between Abbas and Hamas on the resumption of peace talks.

For Egypt especially, the resumption of national unity talks is becoming crucial to mitigate the harm sustained by the recent furore over toughened security measures Egypt is applying on its borders with the Gaza Strip, under the control of Hamas for over two years.

In Sharm El-Sheikh on Tuesday, Mubarak received Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al-Faisal who had earlier received Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. Following his talks in Sharm, Saud took off to Damascus for talks with Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. Top on the agenda of Saud's talks is the possible resumption of Palestinian national unity.

"Nothing is certain. It could all flop," commented an Egyptian diplomat. This, he explained, applied to both the peace negotiations and national unity talks.

Almost on the eve of the Israeli war on Gaza, Egypt is again weathering a storm on its eastern borders with the Gaza Strip under harsh Israeli siege.

On the one hand, Cairo is denying access to national and international non-governmental convoys that demanded access into the Gaza Strip through the Egyptian border.

The Foreign Ministry issued two consecutive statements on Monday and Tuesday to voice rejection of appeals forwarded by some humanitarian organisations to access Gaza. According to the Foreign Ministry, the rejection was prompted by the failure of the concerned organisations to fully abide by the regulations required for permits to be issued.

Security sources who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly on conditions of anonymity attributed the rejection of the Egyptian government to the association between some of the concerned national and international organisations to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas. "We are willing to be responsive to demands of humanitarian organisations but we cannot turn a blind eye to the attempt of the Muslim Brotherhood or Hamas to use the situation in Gaza to stir unrest on the Egyptian borders," one source said.

Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood sources did not deny association with attempts to render humanitarian assistance to the economically suffocated Gaza Strip. However, they firmly denied any intention whatsoever to use the strictly humanitarian exercise to serve political purposes.

Meanwhile, Egyptian officials say that the situation is already tense on the borders. One source who asked for strict anonymity said that Egyptian security has concrete evidence that Hamas activists have found their way through tunnels, illicitly built between Gaza and the Egyptian territories, into the Sinai Peninsula.

According to the same source, "these elements are there to test the ground for a potential massive crossing of thousands of Palestinians into the borders to protest the construction of the security wall that Egyptian authorities are constructing on the borders with Gaza."

The wall, Egyptian officials have argued, is part of a wider security scheme that includes the instalment of US-provided tunnel detectors on the borders.

The same officials argue that the purpose of this exercise is twofold: first to honour Egyptian commitment to prevent smuggling through its borders into Gaza, especially of arms that Israel complains are stored by Hamas. Then, to prevent any possible smuggling of arms into Egyptian territories and to prohibit any illegal crossing of Gaza citizens as had happened in January 2008.

Foreign Minister Ahmed Abul-Gheit and Presidential Spokesman Suleiman Awad were explicit in a sequence of statements in underlining "Egypt's right to take whatever measures to protect its own borders in accordance with the prerequisites of Egyptian national security".

"The sovereignty of Egyptian territories are simply sacred and Egypt cannot undermine this sovereignty under any pretext," Awad said.

Egyptian officials have shrugged concerns raised by humanitarian activists over the negative impact of the new security wall on the harsh humanitarian situation in Gaza. "Whether we like it or not the tunnels that are built illicitly between Gaza and Egypt help bring in food and medicine -- even if they are also used to smuggle arms," one international humanitarian official said.

Information obtained by the Weekly indicates that the "security wall" is mainly a block of thick steel that is built in phases. As sources say, the process has been put on hold to avert tension in view of the anger demonstrated by Palestinians in Gaza.

On Monday thousands of Palestinians demonstrated in Gaza to protest against the construction of the wall that they said would only worsen the siege imposed on Gaza by Israel.

Last year, Palestinians demonstrated against the determined Egyptian position to keep its borders with Gaza closed during the 22-day Israeli Operation Cast Lead on Gaza.

Today, Hamas sources say that they take offence at the Egyptian measures especially that they come at the end of over a year of tight restrictions imposed by the Egyptian authorities on the operation of the Rafah crossing.

Moreover, Hamas sources suggest that by taking this step Egypt is in fact sending a negative message to the resistance movement about Cairo's intention to cut itself off from the Palestinian predicament.

"This is not the case," argued an Egyptian diplomat who asked for his name to be withheld. According to this diplomat the security measures undertaken by Egypt on its borders with Gaza are not designed to antagonise Hamas but rather to spare Egypt from being dragged by Israel into the quagmire of taking responsibility for Gaza. "Israel wants to throw Gaza in our face and we are simply telling Israel that as an occupying power it has responsibilities to honour," he stated.

According to the same official the visit of General Intelligence Chief Omar Suleiman to Israel on Sunday catered partially for this matter. Suleiman, the same officials suggest, also aimed to get Israel to agree to commit to the ease of the siege imposed on Gaza in case of the completion of the Palestinian swap deal. "But this deal looks very likely one day and very unlikely the following."

Meanwhile, concerned Egyptian officials say that Egypt is far from disassociating itself with the Palestinian cause. Consultations, they add, are conducted between Cairo and several Arab and Western capitals to solicit some political movement that could produce the resumption of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. "Unless negotiations are resumed it is unlikely that Israel would try to improve the situation in Gaza," a diplomat said.

Egyptian sources in Washington say that plans are underway for Foreign Minister Abul-Gheit to visit Washington by mid-January. The visit, they say, would try to examine a possible way out of the current political stalemate that is caused by the failure of the US administration to get Israel to commit to a full freeze of illegal settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territories.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is still committed, Palestinian diplomats say, to condition the resumption of negotiations with Israel on the settlement freeze.

"There are alternatives that are being examined. One possible scenario is for Israel to pass authority over more Palestinian territories to Abbas in return for upgraded security arrangement on his part," said one source who spoke to the Weekly from Washington. He added that should this scheme be considered seriously by the Palestinian Authority and by concerned Arab capitals then that might offer a by-pass to the issue of settlement freeze.

Development, or rather the lack thereof, on the Palestinian front was expected to be a top agenda item during the talks that President Hosni Mubarak held during a three-leg Gulf tour that started in the United Arab Emirates, and that also included Saudi Arabia and ended in Kuwait this week.

Egyptian officials have expressed unreserved concern over the slow pace of development on the Palestinian scene, especially with regards to Gaza. Egypt's main concern, they privately admit, is not borne of sympathy with the Palestinians but concerns the consequences of the current stalemate on Egyptian interests.

"Nothing seems to be moving forward. The reconciliation [of disputing Palestinian factions] is stalled and the prisoner swap deal is hampered. And [resumption of] the peace process itself looks unlikely for a while -- maybe a long while," said one Egyptian official who asked for his name to be withheld.

This means that the current de facto separation of Hamas-ruled Gaza and the Palestinian Authority-ruled West Bank will continue. It also means the suspension of the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for Palestinian prisoners.

"The bottom line is that Gaza will remain isolated from the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories, under continuous Israeli siege," explained the same official. "It also means that the Palestinian Authority will remain challenged, both internally, due to its failure to retain control over Gaza, and externally, due to the unlikelihood of a resumption of peace talks".

For Egypt the consequences are grave. The economically deprived and densely populated Gaza Strip is, say officials, already causing Cairo major headache.

National and international human rights organisations have repeatedly criticised Egypt for not opening the Rafah crossing that links Egypt to Gaza, while Israel and the US criticise Egypt for its alleged laxity in combating the smuggling of goods into Gaza through underground tunnels.

Now Egypt faces growing concern among activists and human rights organisations over the application of more stringent security measures along its border with Gaza, including installing more sensitive detection equipment capable of alerting the authorities to possible smuggling activities or tunnel construction.

If the separation between Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories extends into the long term, Israel could all too easily aggravate the siege imposed on Gaza. Then, Egyptian officials worry, it will fall on Cairo to assume responsibility for the citizens of Gaza.

"This is a nightmare we have to avoid. Do you know what it means to provide electricity for the entire Gaza Strip or to worry about the infiltration of militant activists into Egyptian territories? It would be an economic and security nightmare," says one senior state official. "And why should we spare Israel, the occupying power, from shouldering its responsibilities towards Gaza as stipulated by international law?"

Egypt is also worried over the possible collapse of the Palestinian Authority as a result of the current political failures.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas has said he may quit in the next few months if the current political stalemate continues.

"Abbas seems to be seriously contemplating stepping down. The most recent announcement is not like his earlier," said an Egyptian diplomat who has served in Ramallah.

Should Abbas resign, Palestinian sources suggest the Palestinian Authority will itself fall into serious disrepair given the absence of any agreement on a successor. "This time it could be an internal Fatah fight and not just a Fatah- Hamas conflict," says one source.

The only alternative to this bleak scenario, Egyptian diplomats suggest, is to prompt serious political action. This, they say, is the essential aim of the foreign trip President Mubarak started in Paris on Sunday and which will take in Ankara.

In Paris, Mubarak discussed with his French counterpart possible ways to revive the peace process in view of the failure of the US to secure the freeze of illegal Israeli settlement construction in occupied Palestinian territories which had been demanded by Abbas as a condition to resume peace talks.

Egyptian and French diplomats have separately suggested the possibility of an international peace conference that could provide the Palestinians with international guarantees over the retrieval of occupied Palestinian land irrespective of whether it currently contains Israeli settlements. Both Egyptian and French diplomats, however, report American unease over such an international conference, especially if held under the auspices of the Union for the Mediterranean, jointly chaired by Egypt and France.

In France, Mubarak was also expected to ask President Nicolas Sarkozy to use his good offices with Israel to encourage a more positive engagement from the government of Binyamin Netanyahu in the prisoner swap deal. Egyptian officials say that the deal could be completed relatively easily if the Israeli government stops stalling.

"France is particularly concerned with this deal because Shalit has French citizenship and we believe that Sarkozy could help there," said an Egyptian diplomat.

The US has also been less than enthusiastic towards Egyptian mediation between Hamas and Fatah. In France and Turkey Mubarak is expected to garner support for Cairo's attempts to foster reconciliation.

"Turkey had offered to help with the reconciliation process and we don't mind cooperating on some aspects," the same diplomatic source said.

Mubarak also has an economic agenda to promote in France, Turkey and Denmark, say Egyptian officials, though the main goal is to induce some momentum into the Palestinian scene.

"It seems that the high hopes that many people had when Obama came to office are progressively evaporating. And it seems we are back to crisis management," the diplomat suggested.

Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu this week instructed his government to draw up a proposal to amend the international laws of war after a damning UN report. Netanyahu, international news agencies reported Wednesday, is determined to prevent Israeli leaders from being prosecuted by international justice for committing war crimes -- which could amount to crimes against humanity -- against Palestinians under occupation. Netanyahu said the amendment that Israel is planning to launch in an intensive campaign should be secured in view of what he qualified as the need for the world to maintain its war on terror.

The new Israeli scheme comes against the backdrop of harsh international criticism against Israel for the atrocities it committed against Palestinians under occupation, including its war on Gaza early this year which were recorded in an international judiciary report. It also comes parallel to intensified inter-governmental and non-governmental Arab and international attempts to prosecute Israeli war criminals either before the International Criminal Court (ICC) or in national courts in countries whose judiciary system addresses war crimes as part of their adoption of the principle of universal jurisdiction.

The Richard Goldstone Report was passed last week by the UN Human Rights Council and was consequently forwarded to the UN secretary-general and the chair of the UN General Assembly. The General Assembly is tentatively scheduled, according to sources in New York, to address the report before Christmas. "Israel is leaving no stone unturned to prevent a session of the General Assembly on the Goldstone Report from being held," an Egyptian diplomatic source in New York said. However, he added, "At the end of the day the General Assembly will probably have to examine this report, if not before Christmas, then after the holidays".

Meanwhile, it is in the capacity of UN Secretary- General Ban Ki-Moon to directly refer the report to the UN Security Council, in view of the fact that the Human Rights Council endorsed the report with all its recommendations that includes a call on the UN Security Council to examine the report and to act to address the violations included in it.

The Human Rights Council will expect a report from Ban on relevant progress by March. Human rights diplomats argue that the maximum that should be expected is for the UN General Assembly to issue a resolution that calls for the observation of the rules of international law and international humanitarian law. A Palestinian diplomat told Al-Ahram Weekly that "anybody who thinks for one minute that the US would allow this report to go to the Security Council is dreaming, to say the least."

The US has openly worked to block the Human Rights Council's endorsement of the Goldstone Report, lobbying with Israel, say Egyptian and other Arab sources in New York. Some expect that it could eventually succeed in shelving it.

Notwithstanding, Hesham Youssef, chief of the Cabinet of the Arab League secretary-general, said this week that the Arab organisation is "pursuing its efforts to prosecute those who committed war crimes in Gaza". Youssef spoke to the Weekly days after his return from The Hague where he conducted intensive talks with ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo. A party to the consultations in The Hague was Palestinian Minister of Justice Ali Al-Khashan, as was international law professor John Dugard, who headed an independent fact- finding committee on Gaza and issued "No safe place", a judiciary report on the violations of international law in the Israeli war on Gaza.

The Hague consultations had two objectives: to establish the right of the Palestinian Authority -- which does amount to a state -- to prosecute before the ICC, and to establish the legal foundation for the ICC to prosecute.

The Paris-based human rights activist Haytham Manna told the Weekly in a telephone interview that Moreno-Ocampo had been presented with ample material for him to proceed. "And we are not going to let go and we will not let the Goldstone and Dugard reports meet the same fate as the Tutu report", Manna said in reference to a report prepared by a fact-finding mission headed by Nobel Peace laureate Desmond Tutu on the Israeli attack on Beit Hanoun in Gaza in 2006.

Both Manna and Djebril Fahl, a Palestinian lawyer and advisor to the PA, predicted in separate interviews with the Weekly that it would take Moreno- Ocampo a few months before he can reach a conclusion. Both excluded the possibility that the ICC prosecutor would come under pressure. "Things are proceeding", Manna said.

Manna also excluded the possibility that the PA, which had earlier this month aimed to postpone the Human Rights Council's examination of the Goldstone Report, would get cold feet. "We have passed the point where people could turn their back."

Speaking to the Weekly on the phone from Ramallah, Al-Khashan said, "the Palestinian Authority is firmly committed" to pursue this path. The Palestinian minister, however, excluded the possibility that the process would bring Israeli leaders to admit having committed war crimes against Palestinians. "This is a long shot," he said. "What we are surely doing, however, is to incriminate Israel morally."

Manna acknowledged the same difficulties but argued "at least it would be possible to get national courts to prosecute Israeli war criminals. We will do it."

Palestinian and Israeli rights group alike say that in its December-January onslaught on Gaza, Israel killed close to 1,500 Palestinians, one-third of them children.

For its part, Arab human rights activists say Israel is engaged in "a ruthless campaign to shut up all legal and human rights organisations" that criticise its atrocities against the Palestinian people. They report some Israeli success in the recent criticism launched against Human Rights Watch by no other than its former chairman Robert Brenstien who said that Human Rights Watch is helping "those who want to turn Israel into a pariah state".