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.”

The US administration is quietly pressuring the Palestinians to come to the negotiating table, according to an influential American Jewish leader and longtime supporter of US President Barack Obama.

According to Alan Solow, chairman of the American Jewish umbrella organization, Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Obama administration has learned some lessons from the mistakes of the past year, primarily “that trying to [pressure the sides] in public is not a recipe for success. One of the weaknesses of the [administration’s] approach toward Israel was that the settlement freeze demand was made publicly, and that put Prime Minister Netanyahu in a very difficult political position.”

Obama’s popularity ratings have suffered among Israelis due to a widespread perception in Israel that Obama favored the Palestinian side in the ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict. But Solow said American leaders are well aware the Palestinians are the party refusing to talk.

“I don’t think the Americans are asking Netanyahu to do more with respect to the Palestinians” than the concessions he has already made, such as the public acceptance of Palestinian statehood and a ten-month construction freeze in West Bank settlements.

“The administration is pressuring the Palestinians,” he insisted, “but [it must do so] quietly, without it appearing as though [Palestinian and Arab leaders] are caving in to American pressure.”

“The administration should continue to acknowledge that the Israelis are willing to return to the negotiating table and it’s time to tell the Palestinians they have to do the same, and it’s important to bring the Arab states into this process to give Abbas the support he needs to start negotiating,” he said.

Solow spoke to The Jerusalem Post on the sidelines of the Conference of Presidents gathering in Jerusalem, an annual event that brings American Jewish leaders to Israel for briefings and meetings in the country. Over the course of the gathering this week, the group of some 100 organizational leaders is hearing from Israel’s president, prime minister, defense minister, opposition leader and other top officials.

While Solow sought to convey that Obama was working behind the scenes to jump-start negotiations, an Israeli official gave a more pessimistic analysis of the current state of the peace process.

“There are question marks in Israel as to whether Abu Mazen [PA President Mahmoud Abbas] wants negotiations at all,” said Israeli special envoy to the negotiations Brig.-Gen. Michael Herzog. In the Israeli view, “Abbas thinks in historical terms. This is his last term as president. He doesn’t want [to start a process that will] fail.”

To convince the Palestinian leaders to come to the negotiating table, the US administration “should make clear to the Palestinians that America will not step forward with an already completed [peace] plan,” a move that would sidestep negotiations and give the Palestinians the impression they need not negotiate over the concessions Israel wants, including recognition of Israel’s Jewishness.

The Arab world, too, “should be encouraged to encourage Abbas to sit down to negotiate without preconditions. [So far], the Arabs have not been willing to say anything publicly on this. Privately, they’re saying to the Americans and to us: ‘We think Abbas’s position regarding re-launching negotiations is unsustainable, but we still support him.’ It’s a contradictory position,” Herzog said.

Indeed, the Arab states could be more a part of the problem than the solution.

“Next month the Arab League is convening. If by then there are no bilateral discussions, the Arab nations will go toward the lowest common denominator [in rejecting negotiations] and tie Abu Mazen’s hands more,” he warned. “So I don’t think we have much time.”

Both Jewish and Arab Israelis support peace talks with the Palestinian Authority by a large majority, but also trust the government's handling of Israel's security challenges, according to the latest Tel Aviv University "War and Peace Index" survey.

72.5 percent of Israelis support negotiations toward peace, with just 20.9% opposing it.

This support for negotiations, however, did not translate into optimism that the efforts would result in peace in the near term.

Asked if the security situation will change in 2010, 57% of Jews said it will not, compared to 19% who think there will be progress toward peace and 13% who predict another round of fighting between Israel and Palestinians. Among the Arab public, there were almost twice as many optimists, with fully 35% saying there would be progress towards peace in the coming year.

Alongside the general support for negotiations, Israelis trust the government's handling of Israel's security challenges.

Fully 78% of Israelis believe the government is functioning "well or even better," or "medium" (42% and 36% respectively) in dealing with Israel's security challenges. Just 16% say it is functioning "poorly." (In contrast, the government earned a failing grade on social issues, with 60% of Israelis giving it a "poor" grade, and just 6% saying it has functioned "well or even better" on these issues.)

This trust was reflected in different ways in the survey. For example, asked if the government was correct in rejecting the latest Hamas offer to exchange Gilad Schalit for terrorists "with blood on their hands," a majority (53%) said they supported the government's decision. Just 35.5% disagreed with the government's position.

According to the study's authors, this figure marks a change from previous polls in which Israelis said Schalit should be exchanged even at the cost of freeing the "heaviest" terrorists held by Israel.

"It appears that as the moment of decision approaches, the public tends to rely on the government's judgment on this painful issue," the authors wrote.

Support for the prisoner exchange was noticeably higher among Jewish women than among Jewish men, with support for the deal reaching 41% (compared to the overall 35.5%).

Similarly, the Jewish public tended to support the government's position on the issue of opening Road 443 to Palestinian traffic. Some 63% support the government-backed status quo, which leaves the major artery to Jerusalem closed to Palestinian traffic from nearby villages out of fear that such traffic will bring with it terrorist attacks. Less than half, 30%, support the High Court of Justice's ruling that the current policy violates international and Israeli law and must be changed.

The poll found most of the support for the High Court's position coming from those identifying with the political Left, with 100% of Meretz voters and 54% of Labor voters siding with the Court.

Israeli Arabs overwhelmingly sided with the Court (83%), though at a lower rate than Meretz voters.

In general, the poll found that Israeli Arabs do not share the same trust expressed by the Jewish public on the government's handling of security matters.

Fully 57% said the government had erred in rejecting the Hamas offer for Schalit, though -unexpectedly - 20% said the government had acted correctly.

A similar gap between Jews and Arabs was found on the question of who was responsible for the relative calm that the country experienced in 2009.

Noting that the IDF has called 2009 "a particularly quiet year in security terms," the poll asked Israelis who they believed was responsible for the quiet. A majority of Jews (54%) said it was the result of the actions of Israeli security forces, while just 19% gave the majority of the credit to the Palestinian leadership. Among Israeli Arabs, however, a "prevailing assessment" (49%) said it was due to the decision of the Palestinian leadership to lessen the violence, while only 19.5% gave Israeli security forces most of the credit.

The "War and Peace Index" is funded by the Evans Program for Conflict Resolution Research of Tel Aviv University. It is considered an important ongoing barometer of Israelis' opinions on issues affecting the peace process and the conflict in the region. It has been ongoing since 1993.

The telephone interviews were conducted by the B. I. Cohen Institute of Tel Aviv University on January 4-5, 2010, and included 525 adult Israeli interviewees, including in the West Bank and the kibbutzim. The sampling error for a sample of this size is 4.5%.

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat's statements on Saturday that Israelis were stalling on implementing a two-state solution and the Palestinians would soon ask the UN to recognize a Palestinian state in the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip may have been meant as a grave threat, or perhaps they were intended as bluster for internal consumption.

But for most Israeli analysts and observers, his threat appears more like a self-made trap for Palestinian leaders.

Why shouldn't the Palestinians declare their state unilaterally?

In principle, little would change. The Palestinian Authority would have real control over barely 40 percent of the land it hopes to gain in negotiations, representing major Palestinian population centers in the West Bank but little beyond that.

Meanwhile, nothing would be solved on the thorny issues that face negotiators, such as Jerusalem, refugees, Palestinian disarmament and borders. These would simply transform from the subject of internationally backed (though not yet started) negotiations between Israel and the PA to bilateral negotiations between Israel and the state of Palestine. The issues themselves would remain unchanged.

While gaining nothing, the Palestinians stand to lose much.

It is often forgotten that during his first term as prime minister, from 1996 to 1999, Binyamin Netanyahu drew the ire of the Right and eventually lost his government because he felt compelled to fulfill obligations toward the Palestinians undertaken by previous governments. He turned over a majority of Hebron to Palestinian control and agreed to further steps toward Palestinian autonomy in the Wye River Accords.

At the time, he was angrily critical of the Palestinian government of Yasser Arafat for failing to implement its part of Oslo, including ending incitement, cutting support for terror organizations and establishing security and the rule of law in PA-controlled areas. But whatever his qualms or political ideals, he faithfully implemented past agreements.

Shortly after returning to the Prime Minister's Office in March, Netanyahu publicly offered the Palestinians statehood. It is impossible to read his mind to determine if the offer was sincere, but it is fair to assume from past experience that he feels obligated to past Israeli agreements, including Oslo and the road map, both processes that have as their logical conclusion a Palestinian state.

If the Palestinian leadership renounces Oslo in favor of unilateral statehood, it will break the international agreements that have obligated Israeli governments and driven a process that, in the final analysis, already sees much of Palestinian life under Palestinian control.

The policy staff in Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's office has drawn up a secret memo calling for a radical refocus of Israeli foreign policy toward the developing world, The Jerusalem Post has learned.

According to sources, the foreign minister plans to bring the five-page preliminary policy paper to the ministry's senior professional staff in the coming days, to begin discussion on implementing what is being described as "guidelines for a whole new foreign policy."

According to a copy of the memo obtained by the Post, the new policy involves moving away from a "lone dependence" on the United States as a strategic ally, to developing broader and closer ties with other world powers and with the developing world.

The document, which was developed in recent weeks at Lieberman's request, focuses on three major shifts in policy: expanding ties with parts of the world "neglected" by previous governments, lowering international expectations of a breakthrough in negotiations with the Palestinians and creating a "zero-tolerance" policy for anti-Semitic expressions worldwide.

The memo chastises the Foreign Ministry for "becoming the 'Ministry for Palestinian Affairs,' with Israeli foreign policy almost entirely consumed by this single issue."

The almost exclusive focus of diplomacy on the Arab-Israeli conflict "has hurt Israeli interests in the [broader] international arena and in our relations with the United States and Europe," the memo states.

"There is no replacement for Israel's special relations with the United States," the memo continues, calling America "without a doubt Israel's best friend in the world.

"But," it continues, "the lone dependence on the United States is unhealthy for either side and presents difficulties for the US. Israel must build coalitions with other states on the basis of shared interests. In this way, it will expand and strengthen the circle of support, something which will be a relief for the US as well."

In particular, the memo protests as "inconceivable" that Israel's relations with the US "should center only on the Palestinian issue. There are many other important issues facing the two states, including regional security, the struggle against terrorism and cooperation in scientific research, economic [issues] and cultural [issues]."

In working to expand ties outside the US-Israel relationship, the document criticizes past Israeli policy vis-à-vis the rest of the world.

"For decades, Israel has neglected entire regions and continents, including Latin America, Africa, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, and Central and Southeast Asia. The cost of this neglect has been immense, and has been evident at the UN and other international forums."

According to the document, "it's hard to accept the claim that [Israel's difficulties in international forums] are due to 'the world being against us' when it is we who have abandoned vast swaths of the planet."

The memo faults past diplomats for "trying to 'catch' representatives [of African and Latin American states] at random, just moments before a decisive UN vote."

It calls such efforts "pathetic and reflecting a lack of effort or thorough systematic thinking. Can we really expect such countries, who receive neither visits from Israeli leaders nor [Israeli] investment, to vote in our favor?

"Only by building broad coalitions and through long-term investment in ties with continents and states that have been neglected for many years can Israel improve its ability to deal with the challenges ahead."

The document calls for a new surge of "meetings of senior officials, development and resource aid, strengthened economic and business ties, etc., [which] will create a situation in which Israel is not a lone actor in the international arena."

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the memo notes that "16 years have passed since the signing of the Oslo Accords. That is a long enough period, which saw governments established of the Left, Center and Right, to allow us to understand that peace cannot be imposed from above, but must be constructed from the foundations."

In an apparent critique of US President Barack Obama's efforts for an immediate jump-start of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, the memo says that attempts "to impose an immediate, total and comprehensive solution between Israel and the Palestinian Authority are preordained to fail."

Noting a series of failed "artificial" deadlines, including the 1993 five-year plan for the Oslo process, the renewal in 1999, and the efforts and deadlines of US presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, the document calls for lowered expectations of the current effort.

"Creating [exaggerated] expectations as though it is possible to arrive [in the near term] at a comprehensive settlement ending the conflict could lead us once again to disappointment and frustration that will damage our relations with the United States and Europe and lead to a violent response from the Palestinians."

The document calls for "a more realistic approach that emphasizes improving the situation on the ground, which will bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a calmer point that will take it off the international agenda.

"We can reach a temporary settlement between the sides, even without solving the core issues, including Jerusalem, the right of return and borders. This is the most that can be achieved realistically, and it is crucial to convince the United States and Europe of this."

The memo also seeks to bring a new focus on worldwide anti-Semitism.

"In addition to the classical forms [of anti-Semitism], we are seeing it manifested also in boycotts of Israeli goods and academic institutions, and in political-legal suits against Israeli leaders and military personnel visiting Europe."

It calls for "a policy of zero tolerance toward anti-Semitic expressions and blood libels against Jews and Israel."

Citing "attacks on Jewish communities around the world and the undermining of Israel's legitimate right to defend itself," the document says the Foreign Ministry "must not take such expressions lightly."

Special mention is made of "cases where the conduct of Western and enlightened states encourage anti-Semitic expressions, whether intentionally or not. We cannot be silent in the face of the conduct of the Swedish government, which does not condemn anti-Semitic articles published in the Swedish media."

Specific examples of behavior Israel must condemn in the future included the presence of the Swedish ambassador to Iran as the only European representative at the swearing-in "of the Holocaust-denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad" in August.

"Only an aggressive and unapologetic stance in the face of these events will explain to the world that it is impossible to accept or encourage anti-Semitism in any way, shape or form," it says.

The torture-murder of French Jew Ilan Halimi in 2006 and the deadly shooting at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in June "serve to emphasize that anti-Semitism bubbles beneath the surface and must be fought with persistence and stubbornness."

In the final analysis, the memo claims, Israel "has all the elements needed to brand itself as a hi-tech superpower on the one hand, and a historic center of human civilization on the other, and to improve its position and image in the world."

To achieve this, Israel's foreign policy must be "fundamentally altered, and must find new emphases."