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.”

Jerusalem - On the job less than two weeks, Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz already is sparring with his boss, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, over how to deal with the Palestinians.

Olmert has rebuffed attempts by Peretz to send more humanitarian aid and to arrange a summit with moderate Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The public spats between the strong-willed men have given the newly formed government a rocky start and raised new questions about its ability to hold together to implement Olmert's plan to draw Israel's borders by 2008.

Olmert and Peretz — the leaders of the two largest parties in the governing coalition — agree on the big issue: that Israel should unilaterally pull out of West Bank land if negotiations with the Palestinians fail.

"I believe that we, for our part, as the prime minister has promised, will make a genuine and serious effort to reach a negotiated settlement with the Palestinians before any decision is made" on a unilateral pullout, Peretz told a news conference in Jerusalem.

"In any case, what is clear is that there is an unequivocal democratic majority among the people and in the parliament for carrying out this plan."

Although Peretz and Olmert agree on the goal, they differ strongly on how to achieve it.

Peretz, whose dovish Labor Party controls 19 seats in the 120-member parliament, called for Israel to sidestep the Palestinian Cabinet — led by the Islamic militant group Hamas — and instead negotiate with Abbas, a moderate who appealed Monday for Israel to open a new round of peace negotiations with him.

Olmert, who leads the 29-seat centrist Kadima Party, has said he will not hold peace talks with Abbas while Hamas remains in power and was furious with Peretz's proposal.

Olmert, who pushed for an international economic boycott of the Hamas-led Palestinian government, was further angered by Peretz's attempt to present a proposal at Sunday's Cabinet meeting to transfer $11.3 million in humanitarian assistance to the Palestinians. Peretz said the international sanctions were too severe.

Flexing his muscles, Olmert did not even put the issue on the Cabinet agenda, let alone bring it to a vote. The excuse, attributed by the Israeli media to anonymous aides, was that Peretz's proposal had been presented in "raw form" and required more work.

"This is really starting to look like a nursery school, and not an exclusive one," political analyst Emanuel Rosen told Israeli Army Radio.

Analysts have slammed both men, but mostly Olmert, for the fighting, noting they desperately need one another to survive politically.

Olmert will not be able to move ahead with his withdrawal plan without Labor's support. Peretz, if he quits the Cabinet, could be sidelined in the opposition or push the government to an early election before his party is ready.

In the end, Olmert knows "that the success of this government lies first and foremost with a good relationship between him and Amir Peretz ... and slowly they will learn to work together," said Labor Party Cabinet minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, himself a former defense minister.

Olmert included Peretz's Labor Party in the government because he wanted support for the pullout, analyst Hanan Crystal said. Peretz, however, is focused on socio-economic issues, Crystal said, and will not necessarily behave like previous Labor leaders, who remained in coalitions to accomplish broader security goals such as last summer's pullout from the Gaza Strip.

Even without the tiff, analysts are skeptical the coalition can remain together long enough to carry out the West Bank withdrawal.

Once the pullout is put to a vote, the ultra-Orthodox Shas party will likely bolt the government, predicted political analyst Yossi Alpher. And the Arab parties in Israel's parliament — who oppose unilateral moves — might not support the plan, which could deprive Olmert of a parliamentary majority, Alpher said.

"I don't think you need this little spat to know that this government won't last for four years because its foundations are too unstable," Alpher said.

"In the course of the past 18 years, every Israeli government has fallen over the Palestinian issue and every Israeli government has ended its term early because of the Palestinian issue. I don't think this government will be any different."

Jerusalem - A private Jewish group has taken over two buildings in largely Arab east Jerusalem, provoking clashes with Palestinian neighbors.

Elad, a nonprofit organization that buys Arab properties in east Jerusalem for Jewish settlers, purchased the two buildings "more than a few months ago," said Adi Mintz, a member of the group's board of directors.

Several Jewish families moved in last week after the Arab sellers moved out, Mintz said.

Jewish organizations, often funded by wealthy American Jews, have bought up dozens of properties in Arab areas of Jerusalem, touching off riots and generating animosity among the Palestinian residents of the disputed city.

Israel says all of Jerusalem is its capital, while Palestinians claim the eastern half for the capital of a future state. The fate of the city and of its holy shrines has been one of the major obstacles in Israeli-Palestinian peacemaking.

The two buildings Elad bought are on the Mount of Olives, about 100 yards from an ancient Jewish cemetery. Israeli security guards armed with assault rifles and walkie-talkies guard the three-story buildings, which are fronted by metal gates shut with a heavy padlock and chains.

Jewish men in skullcaps who sat chatting Monday on a balcony refused to speak to the media.

Mintz said the new Jewish residents of the neighborhood, which overlooks an Old City shrine at the epicenter of the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, believe they are reviving biblical Jerusalem, which has been largely empty of Jews for hundreds of years.

"This is the area of historic Jerusalem," Mintz said. Elad, he said, seeks to settle what he called the "sacred basin" of the city - areas surrounding the Old City and the biblical City of David.

Ali Abulhawa, 47, lives next door to the new Israeli residents. At 2 a.m. last Wednesday, a group of Jews came to the neighborhood with a suitcase full of dollars, he said. They offered the money to a Palestinian who owns a ground-floor apartment, but he refused to sell them his home, Abulhawa said. But his relative, 30-year-old Meison Abulhawa, peeks out of her apartment in the same building, adjusting her headscarf as she looks fearfully at the guns guarding the house next door. She said her son has refused to leave the house since the Jews moved in.

"I want them to go to their home," she said. "Let them go, so the Arab families can come back."

Acting Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, whose Kadima Party won last week's parliamentary elections, has said he would be prepared to give up some east Jerusalem neighborhoods under his plan to draw Israel's final borders.

On Monday, Kadima lawmaker Otniel Schneller emphasized that Israel would retain neighborhoods that are part of "historic Jerusalem" - such as the Mount of Olives and the City of David.

Settling in those areas, as the Elad group has done, is acceptable, Schneller added.

Jerusalem - Acting Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Sunday he planned to get U.S. backing before pushing forward with his plan to withdraw from much of the West Bank, maintain control of major settlement blocs and draw Israel's final borders by 2010.

Meanwhile, candidates made a last-ditch effort to win over voters amid fears of an unprecedented low turnout in Tuesday's election. The three top candidates gave interviews to Israel Radio, trying to clarify their differences and launching final, fierce attacks on their rivals.

Fearing that Palestinian militants could launch a terror attack in the tense days before the vote, Israel's security forces declared a high state of alert beginning Sunday, putting extra forces on the streets and keeping a tight closure on the West Bank.

Meanwhile, soldiers scheduled for duty on Tuesday began voting Sunday.

Following a lackluster campaign that aroused little emotion, pollsters are predicting a voter turnout of around 60 percent, the lowest in Israel's history. In a sign of voter apathy, the blocs of campaign ads broadcast on television over the past three weeks were watched by an average of 14.4 percent of Israelis, their lowest ratings ever, Israel Radio reported.

A low turnout could cause the most damage to Olmert's centrist Kadima Party, which is the clear front-runner, analysts said. Speaking before the weekly Cabinet meeting Sunday, Olmert called on Israelis to go to the polls.

"There is no greater or more significant way to exercise your right as a citizen then that which allows you to decide through a vote the fate of the country and the character of the state's government," Olmert said. "Therefore I tell all the citizens of the state of Israel: Go vote."

A dovish institute took out a full-page ad in the Israeli daily Haaretz on Sunday, warning that low turnout could bring the hawkish Likud leader, former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, to power.

Amnon Dankner, editor of the Israeli daily Maariv, wrote a lengthy appeal to Israelis: "Get out and vote and ... you will know that you took part in determining your fate with serious and mature deliberation, and did not enshroud yourself with shame and catastrophe because you were spoiled and foolish."

Sunday was the last full day of campaigning before the vote. Political parties are barred from campaigning 24 hours before the election.

In his interview with Israel Radio, Olmert expanded on his plan to determine Israel's final borders, if necessary through unilateral West Bank pullouts.

"I spoke about negotiations with the United States and the international community and I spoke about final borders that the entire international community will support, including the United States," he said. "I have a basis to believe that there is great openness in the United States, and in other places, to listen to these arguments and also to seriously discuss them."

The Palestinians oppose Olmert's plan, saying Israel has no right to retain any settlements and final borders can only be decided through negotiations.

Amir Peretz, head of the dovish Labor Party, which is expected to finish a distant second in the polls, used his last day of campaigning to attack Nobel Peace laureate Shimon Peres, the longtime Labor leader who defected to Kadima after losing a party primary to Peretz.

Pollsters predict that Netanyahu will come in third, a serious blow to the Likud Party that has dominated Israeli politics for most of the past three decades. Netanyahu attacked Olmert and Peretz, but also defended the economic moves he is being lambasted for taking when he served as finance minister under Sharon.

Assuming that Olmert - who replaced Ariel Sharon after the prime minister suffered a massive stroke Jan. 4 - will be the next prime minister, Israel Radio commentators pushed him to talk about the makeup of his government and how he would divvy up Cabinet positions.

Olmert refused to comment on positions, but said only parties that accept his plan to pullout of isolated West Bank settlements could join his government.

Jeruslaem - A U.S. government agency is in talks with Israeli settlers in the Gaza Strip to buy 1,000 acres of their greenhouses for $15 million, the farmer leading the negotiations said Friday.

The U.S. Agency for International Development confirmed such talks are under way, but said many issues have yet to be resolved. USAID has given the Palestinians some $1.5 billion in aid over the past decade.

Israel is planning to withdraw in mid-August from 21 settlements in Gaza and four in the West Bank. Many of the 8,500 Gaza settlers grow spices, flowers, cucumbers, peppers and other produce in greenhouses, mostly for export.

Eitan Hadari, the Gaza settler leading the negotiations, said he and the other farmers wanted to find a buyer because they could not move the greenhouses to new plots of land in Israel quickly enough and felt they were not getting enough compensation from their government.

Yossi Tsarfati, coordinator of Gaza farmers, said USAID won an international tender to negotiate a deal with the settlers.

Under the deal being discussed, USAID would pay $15 million for 1,000 acres of greenhouses, Hadari said. This would cover most of the settlement farms, he said.

"We are close to a deal, but it hasn't been signed yet," he said. He acknowledged that no contract has been drawn up yet and that some issues remain unresolved. Hadari said USAID plans to give the greenhouses to local Palestinian farmers, possibly a cooperative, to be used for export purposes. .

Silvana Foa, a spokeswoman for USAID, confirmed that talks are being held but declined to discuss details.

Palestinian Economics Minister Mazen Sonnoqrot said the Palestinian government would not directly or indirectly compensate the Jewish settlers for their greenhouses.

However, Sonnoqrot said the Palestinian government informed the Americans that it would accept the greenhouses from a third party. The greenhouses, he said, would help the Palestinians economically and give them access to new high-tech greenhouse technology.

"If these greenhouses remain intact we will benefit from them," Sonnoqrot said.