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 upcoming trip by an Israeli-Arab member of the Knesset to Auschwitz is the latest chapter in the saga of seeing accusations of anti-Semitism used to smear the Arab and Muslim world. Mohammad Barakeh of the influential party Hadash will make the trek as part of an Israeli parliamentary delegation, which has predictably angered hardline Zionists who reject the idea of an Arab being allowed to participate in an official ceremony at a place with such symbolic meaning for Jews.

When the issue of the Holocaust arises in Arab and Muslim countries, there’s a pretty good chance that misunderstanding will follow. Defenders of Zionism are always quick to point to Palestinian-German contacts during World War II, even though the record shows that the contacts, such as they were, had a miniscule impact of the scheme of things, and were outweighed by the contacts between Zionists and Nazis. Back then, both Palestinians and Zionists had the same enemy – the British Mandate – and were willing to work with anyone to achieve their political goals.

If we leave aside the minority of active Holocaust deniers, we can say Arabs and Muslims view the massacres of Jews with revulsion and horror. But let’s not forget the real world: the organized annihilation of a religious group in Europe has been clouded by the fact that the Jewish victims of a European crime committed in Europe were “rewarded” with a state in a land where this genocide didn’t take place, and at the expense of people who had nothing to do with it.

There’s nothing wrong with actions by Barakeh and others who commemorate the tragedy of the Holocaust. Naturally, they’re criticized in their own communities, for political reasons: why help the Israelis and Jews with such an issue when Palestinians and Arabs are being displaced and oppressed on a daily basis by the Israeli state?

This invariably leads to the difficult-to-handle idea, for some, that there is a difference between Jews, on the one hand, and Zionism and Israel on the other.

In fact, it’s perfectly logical to condemn the Holocaust and anti-Semitism, while relentlessly criticizing the policies of the Israeli state.

Israeli leaders themselves are to blame for the growing difficultly to make the distinction. They occupy land and bomb people, under the aegis of the Star of David. They insist on the Jewishness of the Israeli state. They complain about anti-Semitism being on the rise, but forget salient facts.

The Jews of the 1930s were victims. The Israelis of this decade alone have launched wars against the Palestinian Authority (2002, 2004), Lebanon (2006) and Gaza (2008). And they’re popularly (and incorrectly) seen as being complicit in the 2003 war against Iraq.

People who are angered by this track record aren’t anti-Semites. They’re just reading the news.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas stressed Monday Lebanon’s full authority and sovereignty over all Palestinian refugees camps while underscoring that the refugees’ presence was temporary, until a comprehensive peace solution was reached. “There are no legions under the command of the Palestinian authority in refugee camps and we would cooperate with the Lebanese state to the extent the latter allows, since the camps are Lebanese territories upon which the Palestinians live; thus Lebanon has full sovereignty over them,” Abbas said Monday, following his meeting with President Michel Sleiman.

“The status of Palestinian refugees will remain unchanged until a comprehensive, final solution is reached” with Israel,” Abbas added, in an apparent attempt to quell Lebanese fears of the naturalization of Palestinian refugees.

Abbas stressed that the Palestinian authority would cooperate with the Lebanese government as much as the latter wished, with regard to armed Palestinian groups within refugees camps.

“We as a Palestinian authority put ourselves under the service of the Lebanese Cabinet as we hope that any disagreement among the domestic parties would not reflect on Palestinian refugees’ factions in any country they live in,” Abbas added.

Abbas also discussed with Sleiman Lebanon’s role as a member of the UN Security Council in supporting the Palestinian people’s right to declare their own state.

“We believe there is no alternative to peace but peace itself, and we will continue our political fight for peace,” he said in a news conference.

The Palestinian leader also discussed bilateral ties with parliament speaker Nabih Berri and Prime Minister Saad Hariri, whose government is expected to tackle the issue of the civil rights among refugees.

His trip comes amid renewed efforts to revive the Middle East peace process and concern among Lebanon’s leadership that any deal on the issue of Palestinian refugees would be at the expense of the Lebanese and could threaten the country’s confessional balance.

The Palestinian president says he was “keen” for reconciliation with his militant Hamas rivals so that Palestinians can hold new elections by June 2010.

Abbas’ Fatah faction and Hamas have been at odds since the militant group overran Gaza in June 2007. The move left Fatah in control only of the West Bank.

Egypt has been trying to broker a reconciliation deal between the sides, which would include presidential and legislative elections next year.

Hamas rejected the deal in October, demanding it be amended to say the Palestinians may keep fighting Israel.

Abbas told reporters at Baabda palace he is ready to move forward with the vote “anytime Hamas” agrees to the deal.

The nomination of a Palestinian Ambassador in Lebanon, said Abbas following his meeting with Hariri, is pending several procedures which necessitate the approval of the Lebanese state.

Abbas said this process would begin with the Cabinet approval of the nominated ambassador and then his appointment.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) lists almost 400,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

But Lebanese and Palestinian officials say the actual number may be as low as 250,000 as UNRWA does not strike off its figures those who move to other countries.

The majority of the refugees live in dire conditions in 12 camps across the country of four million inhabitants and are denied basic civil rights.

Lebanon’s constitution stipulates Palestinian refugees cannot take on Lebanese citizenship. The refugees also are prevented from practicing most professions or owning property.

Rights groups and experts warn the poor camp conditions and the fact they are off-limits to the Lebanese army renders them fertile ground for extremist groups.

The issue was starkly brought to light in 2007 when the extremist group Fatah al-Islam fought fierce battles with the army at the Nahr al-Bared camp in northern Lebanon. The fighting killed some 400 people, including 168 soldiers, and left the camp in rubble.

The recent decision by Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas to hold general elections in Palestinian territories in January despite the vocal opposition of Hamas highlights a growing divide between the two leading Palestinian parties at a time when unity is imperative to the goal of a Palestinian state. Fatah’s move exemplifies a trend in internal Palestinian politics for calculated maneuvering that is devised first and foremost to weaken one’s opponent. By calling electiond, Fatah forces the hand of the Islamist party to sign on to a unity deal that could weaken it. This trademark, sadly, has time and again undermined efforts to define more constructive strategies that could secure gains for all Palestinians.

The familiar power struggle not only diverts both groups from taking aim at the target they were originally established to achieve – the creation of a Palestinian state – in the interim it also reinforces Israel’s claims that Palestinians are not fit to rule themselves, and that Israel has no valid partner for peace.

Foreign states share their part of responsibility in turning a people’s quest of self-determination into an unbearable fiasco. Over the years, they have shown their readiness to turn the Palestinian political arena into a field to further their own aims. Israel’s aggressive policies toward Palestinians – the building of settlements, the sequestration of land, and the multiple cases of occupation – are certainly a root cause of the Palestinian’s proclivity for uncompromising political agendas.

Israel’s persistent unwillingness to engage with the Palestinians is reprehensible, but let us not fool ourselves, local political leaders also hold a responsibility for their incapacity to show a united front against their common opponent. Blinded from recognizing the overwhelming commonality of their losses, the Palestinian political class has turned the struggle that should have united them against each other.

The deepening rift between the Fatah and Hamas bears consequences that could complicate the already tortuous road to the formation of a Palestinian state. If Fatah acts upon its plan to hold elections independently of Hamas’ call for a reconciliation deal, the political separation that has divided the parties since simmering tensions boiled over in 2007 could become a permanent one. Hamas representatives have already suggested holding their own elections in parallel to those decreed by Abbas. Under these new circumstances, Israel would have no difficulty justifying its half-hearted attempts at negotiating two peace deals instead of a single one.

Are these attempts to boast their own political power worth the possible ramifications they hold?

Israeli strategists could not have engineered a better state of affairs to so perfectly serve its interests.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has branded the Arab Peace Initiative as "dangerous" because it requires the Jewish state to allow Palestinian refugees to return to its borders, a senior official said Wednesday. "Lieberman considers the Arab Peace Initiative as dangerous and as a threat to Israel because it includes the clause on the Palestinian refugees," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity.

"The foreign minister has nevertheless not rejected the initiative as a whole," he said.

The Arab Peace Initiative, presented by Saudi Arabia in 2002, offers Israel full normalization of ties in return for its withdrawal from occupied Arab land and the creation of a Palestinian state.

It also calls for "a just solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees to be agreed upon in accordance with the UN General Assembly Resolution No. 194," which the Jewish state has repeatedly rejected.

The fate of the Palestinian refugees and their descendants who were driven out of their homes in what is today Israel in the 1948 war - now numbering 4.6 million - is a core issue in the Middle East conflict.

Lieberman has refused to endorse the 2007 US-backed deal agreed during a conference in Annapolis, Maryland to re-launch negotiations with the Palestinians.

The hardline position, coupled with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's refusal to publicly endorse the creation of a Palestinian state, has raised fears that Israel's new cabinet is on a collision course with US President Barack Obama's administration that has vowed to push the faltering Middle East peace talks.

Netanyahu is scrambling to shape his cabinet's policy on the Middle East peace talks ahead of a planned meeting with Obama in Washington in May.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak has proposed that the government should hold parallel peace talks with both Syria and the Palestinians based on the Arab initiative, but Lieberman has rejected the proposal, according to one official.