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.”

Throughout the 60 years of percolating Arab-Israeli conflict both sides have found it easier to declare war – or as the case may be, to wage war without bothering to declare it – rather than to declare peace.

Yet recently, amid renewed fears of the possibility that Israel and Syria could resort to open warfare, fears heightened by the unprecedented military exercises carried out by Israel along its northern frontier, both countries have continued to make statements that they seek peace and not war.

It's all very well to talk about peace. Both the Arabs and Israelis have filled volumes upon volumes with talk of peace. The real challenge however comes when it is time to act. And so far neither side has been bold enough to take a really courageous step in the direction of peace. What they have done instead is to take half measures rather than go the full Monty.

It seems at times as if the word "peace" is a dirty word in the Middle East, not to be mentioned, let alone explored. Yet peace has managed to sneak in, despite the forces opposing it. But when it did come, it crept in through the back door, rather like an illicit lover, instead of being welcomed through the main entrance and in the great pomp and circumstance it merits.

To date, only three countries of the 22 member states of the Arab League have established diplomatic relations with the State of Israel: Egypt, Jordan and Mauritania. But again, those are discreet, often strained relations.

The exchange of tourism many Israelis had hoped would result from a peace treaty with their Arab neighbors failed to materialize. A few plane loads of adventurous Israelis descended upon Egypt and Jordan to tepid receptions. A series of terrorist attacks on Egyptian resorts frequented by Israeli tourists frightened what could have been a lucrative source of revenue for the Egyptians. Traffic in the other direction – Egyptians and Jordanians visiting Israel never materialized.

A few other Arab countries, such as Morocco and Bahrain, have established discreet commercial links with the Jewish state while other countries continue to ignore the very existence of Israel; and Syria remains the only country of the former so-called frontline states (the Arab countries bordering Israel) still in a state of belligerency with the Jewish state.

The bold step now would be for Israel and the Arab countries advocating peace to go the extra step. The Saudi peace initiative, initially unveiled at the Beirut Arab League summit several years ago and since adopted by the 22-member body as the Arab peace initiative, was reiterated at the Damascus Arab summit last week. But again, it was done so in the vaguest of terms. Both sides remain wary of each other, and suspicious of the others' motives.

The Arab peace initiative offers Israel full recognition by all 22 members of the League of Arabs States in exchange for the return of the Arab land captured by Israel in the June 1967 war. Accepting the offer and moving forward requires great courage. The question now remains to see who will have the courage needed to declare peace?

If you want a clear understanding of the explosive situation in Gaza take a look at a most informative report by the American Task Force on Palestine published last week. The report titled, "What Lies Ahead for Gaza?" is a must read.

The authors of the report point out that Hamas and Israel, "have locked themselves into a logic of progressively increasing violence," that unless stopped will "inevitably" drag the region into a wider-scale conflict. ATFP calls for a policy supporting and strengthening the Palestinian Authority's President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad by enabling them to deliver concrete results. It also points to the efforts of trying to pressure Hamas, a policy which is clearly failed.

The problem, states the ATFP report, began to escalate when Hamas ousted Fatah in a bloody coup in June 2007. They characterize "the default situation" between Palestinians in Gaza and Israel "as low intensity confrontations, defined by levels of violence that are politically manageable." That, however, is about to change – and not for the better. As the ATFP report states each flare-up is followed by a progressively worsening pattern, where "each episode is more intense than the previous one."

Despite the ongoing violence and deaths, both Hamas and Israel are treading softly, hard to believe as it may sound. But as each passing day brings the level of violence one notch higher, harsher measures are bound to be applied. So far, says the report by ATFP, both sides have been able to maintain the conflict at "manageable levels." But time plays against restraint, and with each round of violence one can expect the following one to thrust the conflict closer to an eventual wide-scale confrontation.

De-escalation is a first priority if one is to avoid a full confrontation. And as Hamas and Israel are unwilling to talk to each another, a third party should be called into the negotiations. This is the interim short-term solution to the Gaza crisis.

It should be followed by a long-term solution, which "lies in shifting the political balance within the Palestinian polity. A strategy of weakening Hamas can only succeed if it is accompanied by a policy of strengthening the PA." The present Israeli policy of applying collective punishment on Gaza serves only to strengthen Hamas and weaken the Palestinian Authority – producing the exact opposite of the desired results.

In order to relieve the pressure on the residents of Gaza, the Task Force report states: "The most obvious way to demonstrate [the concrete results of negotiations to the Gaza residents] is through re-opening the international crossing out of Gaza into Egypt and Israel under Palestinian Authority control."

Wise advice, but sadly they may be preaching in the desert.

To understand what is happening with the Gaza Strip and why it is happening one needs only to look at a simple kitchen utensil: a pressure cooker with a malfunctioning release vent. Eventually the pot will explode.

This is what is happening in Gaza. Its pressure release vent has malfunctioned, or rather has been sealed shut by an Israeli blockade on the territory, and the pent-up energy is creating explosions. In part, this is what led to the storming of the Egyptian border near Rafah last month when half the Strip's population crossed the international frontier, despite the presence of Egyptian border guards, in order to buy food and supplies in Egypt.

Israel's policy of electing to ignore an elected party, a policy supported by the U.S. administration of George W. Bush has failed to produce the desired results: that of bringing about the rapid demise of Hamas. Rather, Hamas is finding itself stronger with every Israeli attack.

Granted, Israel justifies its attacks on the Gaza Strip as retaliation for the rockets Hamas fires at Israeli cities and towns. And what follows are more rockets to avenge Israel's attacks, followed by more attacks to avenge the rockets. At this point it becomes somewhat similar to the age-old riddle of what came first, the chicken or the egg? In this case the rockets or the attacks?

The bottom line is that it really makes no difference as to who fired first and who retaliated. This devious and deadly game can go on forever. What is required at this point is for someone to take a bold step in the direction of a peaceful resolution.

But as one Arab ambassador told the Middle East Times, one of the major problems surrounding the Middle East crisis is that there are no leaders capable of imposing change for the better. The region is caught in a vicious cycle of violence and seems to be heading for even greater chaos. Unfortunately, said the diplomat, the region lacks competent leadership, whether it's Israel's prime minister, Syria's president, the chairman of the Palestinian Authority, or yet the president of the United States - the latter needs to play a fundamental role in encouraging peacemaking in the Middle East.

But how can one realistically expect the peace process to move forward without the participation of one of the main protagonists in the conflict, Hamas? The policy of not talking to one's enemies has clearly failed to yield positive results. The logical next step would be to reassess that policy and change it. But for that to happen logic needs to prevail. So far that has not been the case.

The good thing that may be said about the Annapolis meeting is that the expectations are gloomily but realistically low. There are not many illusions left in the Middle East, and little is expected from yet another U.S.-brokered summit between Israeli and Palestinian leaders.

Perhaps what is wrong is not just the plot of this over-familiar drama, but the personnel. Maybe it is the three-way relationship between Americans, Israelis and Palestinians, who all know each very well by now; that is the problem.

Dwight Eisenhower, the American General and later president, used to say that if a problem seemed intractable, then enlarge it. The best example was how to evacuate people from American cities in the event of a nuclear alert. The answer was to enlarge the problem to think about modern transportation systems. Eisenhower’s solution was the interstate highway system.

The Palestinian-Israeli problems seem intractable, and maybe enlargement might help. Certainly the nearest there has been to even the sniff of a breakthrough in recent years was the Saudi peace proposals of five years ago at Beirut, offering Israel a peace treaty with the entire Arab world for a two state solution based on the 1967 borders.

So perhaps it would make sense to have some more Arab state involved in the talks. (Remember that it was a very large and international conference, in Madrid during the first Bush administration some 17 years ago, that paved the way for the Oslo accords.)

And there are other players who deserve inclusion. Even in the popular imagination, the Middle East no longer stops, as it used to, with the immediate neighbors of Israel. The Arab world’s center of financial gravity has shifted to the Gulf states, like Abu Dhabi with its $850 billion investment fund, or the booming new city-state of Dubai, or Qatar with its al-Jazeera TV network and its extraordinary gas reserves.

These hugely wealthy statelets will certainly be asked to contribute financially to the reconstruction of the West Bank and Palestine if any kind of accord can be reached. So if they are going to pay, it is only fair to ask them to play.

This shifting of the focus of the Arab world means there are other interested parties, such as Pakistan, the only Muslim state with nuclear weapon, or India, with its close but discreet military ties worth Israel and its 4 million citizens living and working in the Gulf States. And then there are the Chinese and the Japanese and all the other countries whose oil supplies depend on an orderly and reliable supply from the Middle East and Gulf states, and who thus have a direct interest in stabilizing the region.

The Middle East is too big a problem to be left to the Americans, the Israelis and the Palestinians, that enervated troika who have trodden this path so often and so fruitlessly before. Maybe it is time to try the Eisenhower solution and enlarge the problem. However many new players are brought into the game, they could hardly do worse than the existing threesome.