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.”

In July 2000, President Clinton, at the insistence of Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Barak, invited President Arafat and Barak to Camp David. In less than two weeks of intensive negotiations, Clinton expected Arafat and Barak to arrive at a solution to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Incomplete progress was achieved at Camp David, but an agreement was not.

Follow-up negotiations resumed in the months ahead, and by January 2001 an agreement was reached, but as far as Clinton and Barak were concerned, it was too late. Clinton evacuated the White House, and Barak lost the elections in Israel. Ariel Sharon, who worked relentlessly to sabotage all peacemaking efforts between Israel and the PLO after Oslo, assumed office in Israel and the intifada against the Israeli occupation intensified. Much blood has been spilled since then, but two more nonofficial “peace” agreements between Israelis and Palestinians were worked out — the Geneva agreement between Yaser Abed Rabbo and Yossi Beilin, and another one between Sari Nussiebeh, currently head of Al-Quds University, and Ami Ayalon, a minister in the current Israeli government. Outlines, frameworks, and parameters, call them what you wish, for solving the conflict were reached between the sides after Oslo, but never formally or officially adopted or signed.

In November 2004 when President Arafat died, one very significant Palestinian era came to a close, and a new one arrived. Mahmoud Abbas, a veteran Palestinian leader, peacemaker and a fervent supporter of a negotiated peace settlement with Israel, was elected as the president of the Palestinian National Authority. He was also the chairman of the PLO. For almost two years President Abbas was “no peace partner” to Israel. But his consistent peace efforts finally produced some results when the international community, particularly the United States and Europe, pressed the new Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to reconsider Israel’s position and resume negotiations with the PLO.

No less than nine trips made by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Middle East led to last November’s Annapolis conference. In addition to Abbas, Olmert, and President George W. Bush, representatives of more than 90 countries attended the conference. There were high hopes that the conference would lead to the resumption of peace talks between Israel and Palestinians. But hopes have faded and pessimism has taken its place.

Some, however, do not believe the situation is as bad as it appears, and put forward different interpretations of what is going on. They believe something substantial is being cooked in secrecy behind closed doors. More than twenty meetings between Palestinian and Israeli negotiators took place over the last few weeks, five summit meetings between Abbas and Olmert, and President George W. Bush made a visit to the region. Is it possible that nothing in this period was achieved? According to Israeli TV Channel 2 commentators, progress on different core issues was made, and “Olmert and Abbas are cooking the chicken and are hiding it in the freezer because the table is not ready for the meal. Ahmad Qurie and Mahmoud Abbas on one side, Olmert and Livni on the other side can’t reveal what has been achieved in the negotiations.”

However, to Palestinian ears, the above interpretation by Israeli commentators is deceiving, if not altogether false, because:

First, Israel is continuing to build Jewish settlements in Jerusalem and the rest of the West Bank.

Second, using Shas’ threats to bolt the government as an excuse, Israel refuses to conduct negotiations on comprehensive core issues and endlessly stretches negotiations. This tactic is well known to Palestinians. They remember how Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, during the Madrid conference in 1991, threatened to stretch negotiations with the Palestinians for tens of years. Shamir’s threats are the realities of today.

Third, and this is the most important reason, our history with Israel’s compliance with signed agreements (such as the Oslo Accords, signed in the open with superpowers as witnesses) was never honored. How can an agreement negotiated in secret between the sides be honored by Israel at an unknown future date? The sad reality is that the meal Israeli commentators referred to is spoiled.

If, in July 2000, President Clinton thought an agreement between the sides could be reached in less than two weeks, and if parameters for a solution were negotiated and in place since January 2001, why is it necessary to wait until the end of 2008 to see if a solution can be found?

The only conclusion is that without real and serious international intervention to pressure Israel to come to its senses, and arrive at a just and comprehensive peace agreement with the Palestinian people quickly, the whole situation will explode sooner or later, particularly if a serious military confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah takes place. The mutually exchanged threats between both sides are an indication of what is to be expected in the not too distant future. If the military conflagration erupts, any negotiations taking place now between Olmert and Abbas will be no more than an academic exercise leading to nowhere.

If the Western world is really serious about ending the conflict, and achieving a lasting peace between Israel and Palestine, and in the region, an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, and a peace agreement should be realized in the next few months. If the EU and the United States can ensure Kosovo’s independence now, they can also ensure similar arrangements for an independent Palestine by this summer. A satisfactory conclusion to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict will transform the area and strengthen the forces of moderation. This will also defeat the forces of extremism enhancing the prospects for peace in our region and the world.

The Israeli right-wing and its allies in the media are working relentlessly to undermine the Annapolis peace conference. To make the conference convened by President Bush, his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has made no less than eight visits to the Middle East in less than a year.

But the Israeli government’s position on the conference has always been that of a reluctant participant, sending contradictory messages, lowering expectations and discouraging optimism about the outcome.

Putting aside the audacity of the demand by some Israelis for the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state, the Israeli right-wing has used all conceivable arguments and excuses to spoil any chance of success for the conference.

First, the talk was about the absence of a Palestinian peace partner. When a partner appeared on the scene, it was a “weak” partner incapable of controlling his people and unable to deliver. Then came the excuse of continuing Palestinian terrorism and the implementation of the first phase of the road map, until they realized that the Palestinian Authority had almost completed implementation of its obligations, and that it was Israel who failed to deliver its side of the bargain.

For his part, President Mahmoud Abbas, the main protagonist, also assumed the role of a catalyst in order to make Rice’s efforts successful. Abbas accommodated Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who is facing a barrage of attacks from the fringes of his Kadima party, from the leader of the Labor Party and from extreme right-wing parties such as Likud, Shas and the so-called Israel Beiteinu party. In his effort to make it easier for the US administration, the president bent over backward to make convening a worthwhile conference possible. He did not insist on finding a comprehensive framework solution for the core issues now, and did not insist on a six-month timeframe for reaching an agreement, thus allowing Olmert enough leeway to maneuver in the face of Shas, Lieberman, Barak, and others.

Another Israeli right-wing excuse is the “speed” at which the process of peacemaking is proceeding! They accuse the Olmert government of haste as if 15 years of negotiations and 40 years of occupation are not long enough.

But nothing is as puzzling, or perhaps as revealing, as the right-wing argument as conveyed by an editorial in the Jerusalem Post on Monday. The editorial argues that the idea of setting a deadline for wrapping up an agreement between Israelis and Palestinians has ignored something as important: A deadline for turning back the Iranian threat. The editorial concludes: “If this failure continues (a deadline for turning back the Iranian threat), the result will be a much more dangerous world, characterized by a global nuclear arms race, growing terrorism, sky-high oil prices, waning Western influence, perhaps culmination in a full-blown war.”

One would like to ask the editors of the Jerusalem Post: Is it not exactly this what the world is experiencing now? And who is behind the nuclear arms race in the Middle East? The Jerusalem Post also has to explain how much the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands since 1967 has contributed to the current dangerous situation in the Middle East, and the world at large.

But there is some good news. It seems Israeli excuses not to engage in meaningful peace negotiations leading to a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East no longer carry the same weight as before. The world community is learning, albeit belatedly, that settling the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is a major plus for world security, and world economic stability.

It is therefore logical to assume that only intense and determined involvement by the Quartet led by the US is capable of convincing, if not pressuring Israel to end its occupation of the Palestinian territories, and to conclude a comprehensive peace settlement.

An Annapolis failure should not be an option, as it will empower extremists, and this is a recipe for an impending disaster.

Chaos, poverty and desperation on this side of the Green Line is not a recipe for salvation in Israel. Israel over the years has been, through design, instrumental in bringing the occupied Palestinian territory to its current catastrophic situation.

All along, Israel was, and still is, working to annex more and more Palestinian territory and water resources. To this end, it employs all means to make sure of two things: One, the territory it annexes is empty of Palestinians, two: that the Palestinians remain so weak that they do not pose any strategic threat to Israel.

Most recently, this has manifested itself in what Israel terms unilateral disengagement and convergence. It prepared for this by weakening President Mahmoud Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, it spread the notion that there is no Palestinian partner. Through its unilateral action, and ignoring president Abbas's persistent calls on Israel to resume peace negotiations, it paved the way for the election of Hamas and the formation of a Hamas government.

At the same time, Israel choked the Palestinian economy, erected hundreds of checkpoints to isolate Palestinian communities in towns, villages, and cities and never stopped its aggressive campaign of targeted killings and arrests.

This combined policy of not responding to Abbas's calls for the resumption of peace talks, and the continuing suffering of the Palestinian people, provided Hamas with the much-needed help to win the elections and form the government. Hamas itself did not expect this landslide victory.

With the election of Hamas, a new phase emerged. Hamas, considered by the US and the West as a terrorist organization, is helping Israel achieve its other objective, the complete devastation of the Palestinian economy and reducing the Palestinian public into a state of poverty and helplessness. Should the suspension of financial assistance and support continue into the future, it is likely that unemployment will skyrocket, the Palestinian education and health sector will crumble, crime rates will increase. Chaos and civil disorder may engulf the Palestinian territory and perhaps beyond.

This is not in the interest of anyone, including Israel, as it would strengthen extremist forces inside and outside, render any prospects for achieving peace more remote, increase hate, motivate violence and enlarge areas of instability.

Is this what the international community wants? Does it know the implications of this situation for neighboring Arab countries and people? And what would this do to Arab-Muslim relations with the West?

Let us consider the alternative: negotiating with Abbas, in his capacity as president of the Palestine Liberation Organization, the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, and the elected president of the Palestinian Authority.

Abbas is ready to immediately resume negotiations with the Israeli government, bearing in mind that negotiating with Israel is still the mandate of the PLO, which signed all previous agreements with Israel.

As he said in a speech in Stockholm last week, "Resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is the path to resolving many conflicts in our region. To resolve the conflict, occupiers and the occupied should not be left alone. An international conference should be convened immediately, in which direct negotiations take place on the basis of relevant UN resolutions and signed agreements.

President Abbas added: "We yearn to establish a Palestinian state that epitomizes our people's right to self-determination. It shall be a haven for stability and safety, true to democratic practice, living in harmony, peace and having good neighborly relations with all the region's countries and people, including Israel."

A negotiated solution is the objective. We are at a crossroads; we can either grasp the moment, begin negotiations and arrive at a comprehensive peace agreement acceptable to both peoples, or head toward another 50 years of devastating conflict.

Abbas made his choice and opted for a negotiated, just peace with Israel. It is now Israel's turn, either to reciprocate by extending its hand to the president and the Palestinian people, showing respect, acknowledging Palestinian rights, and raising hopes for peace, or by opting for more long years of conflict.

I urge the international community, represented by the Quartet, to assume its responsibility and duty, to work as a broker and arbitrator for the peace process, ensure adherence to UN resolutions, and provide assistance - political, moral and financial - in order to help the parties achieve peace.

Hamas, in my opinion, will lose much of its strength when genuine prospects for peace appear on the horizon.

Walid Awad is director-general of external relations at the office of the chairman of the Palestinian Authority.