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.”

Spring is the time for the land and the people to be reborn. While our winter has not delivered all the hoped for rains, yet it left behind enough nourishment for the landscape to bloom with a variety of wild flowers and green shrubbery. Looking from one’s windows the cocolicos are sprouting all over and the hills around Jerusalem are beautiful, or as we used to say when we were children, the hills are dressed with their best to welcome spring.

In our indigenous Christian traditions spring and Easter go together. They both designate rebirth and as the land reaffirms its colorful rejuvenation, Palestinian Christians reaffirm their inherited faith through the rites and rituals of Easter that insist on perseverance, renewal and continuity.

Celebration of Easter, however, is not an exclusively ethnocentric group exercise. In its ideal message it signifies that by our insistence on preservation, we want to continue to be part of our society and of the wider world around us and not to simply maintain our heritage and traditions. We may be little or small as a community remaining in the holy land but our presence, like the annual Easter celebrations, carries a strong message of love to the land, love to our people and hope in the future.

This Easter season, we do not see any breakthrough in the political process that seeks to end the conflict in our wounded land. Our people remains under occupation and sporadic martial and violent events remind us that we all live in uncertainty. We are moving towards a Palestinian State to be declared in September. Many states and international bodies are already giving high marks for the preparations for Statehood. Our people, particularly its youth, are demanding an end to the division that separates Gaza from the West Bank. In Jerusalem, a group of youth, cognizant of the particular challenges facing their city, the city of Easter and of the Sacrifice of Ishmael and Isaac, are intent on maintaining the beauty of the city, the values it inspires and the rights of its Palestinian citizens. In the region, young men and women are rising up to demand basic rights and for governments that respect the citizen and that can offer human security. These are exciting times but also very painful for those who pay the ultimate price and for their families and for those who remain behind bars or are exposed to bodily and psychological pressures to make them desist from going on with their protests and demands.

Easter reminds us that in spite of everything hope must triumph and prevail. Palestinian Christians, in spite of dwindling numbers in the land of their birth, remain resolute that by their Easter celebrations they identify with the challenges and tribulations of our people and land. Likewise, we identify with the transformations generated by the “Arab Spring”. As we go through Holy Week we pray for the peace of Jerusalem and the entire land; we hope for stronger ties with our compatriots who have emigrated and we pray that the celebrations of Easter would send a message of our common bonds with those amongst whom we live and share the sweet and sour of life.

Blessed Easter

Forty three years have passed since the June war of 1967 and sixty two years have elapsed since the 1948 war. The question today remains: where are we at in terms of ending the Arab-Israeli conflict and moving forward towards different relationships not simply between Palestinians and Israelis but throughout the Middle East. The answers are grim indeed. Instead of containing the conflict, Israel's perpetual obsession with security and the industry created around it, whether in the military, media, diplomatic circles or in presentations aimed at convincing the Israeli population and others across the world of Israel as victim and candidate for eradication seems destined to lead Israel from one war into another. As witnessed in the recent tragic episode of the Gaza Flotilla taken over by Israeli commandoes, the Israeli action and its aftermath made out of the Turkish people a hostile nation.

But Israel's obsession with security is reinforced by actions on the ground in order to keep lands occupied in June 1967 as part of Israel or under Israeli control. The Separation Wall that snakes around 720 kilometers plus in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; the expansion of hundreds of Jewish settler colonies in the West Bank and the refusal to hand back the Golan Heights to Syria are all intended to supposedly provide Israel with self-made guarantees of survival. The siege on the Gaza Strip confirms again Israel's security vision. Having pulled out its forces from the Gaza Strip, Israel could have chosen to normalize its relations with the Gaza population; instead it has placed all of them under house arrest by imposing the siege. There is no willingness to acknowledge that an overwhelming majority of Palestinians want a just and peaceful resolution to the conflict with Israel. Even the Arab Peace Initiative of 2002 was seen as insignificant and not worthy for comment by a majority of the political elite in Israel.

Israel does not have a vision for peace nor is it willing to mold such a vision together with its Palestinian neighbors. The Israeli vision for a Palestinian state is for that state to remain, for an indefinite period of time, another additional guarantee for Israel's security. Thus a viable Palestinian state, as called for by President George W. Bush, will only become viable, from an Israeli perspective, if it were totally dependent and remains subservient to Israel's security needs and requirements. There is no other vision beside that of security to determine the future between Israel and the Palestinians.

Israeli actions in East Jerusalem are also proof that Israel does not have a vision for peace; rather its intention is to take over as much of the Arab Palestinian parts of the city in order to make it impossible to share the city in any future arrangement. The litany of woes, home demolitions, family evictions beside the series of administrative, municipal and other restrictions imposed on the Palestinian population of East Jerusalem make the city of Jerusalem a sad divided city contrary to the claims of Israeli politicians. The socio-economic, cultural and educational disparities between the Arab Palestinian and the Jewish inhabitants of the city are proof of the marginalization of the Arab city of Jerusalem. The Israelis are not courageous enough, maybe not wise enough, to opt for a vision in which Jerusalem is shared among all of its communities and the two nationalities in order that all will feel that the city is theirs with mutual acknowledgement and respect.

The prospects for peace and a just resolution to the Arab – Israeli conflict and to the Palestinian predicament of dispossession and estrangement are indeed not there. There is doubt that the powers of the world, including the USA, would convince the Israelis to move forward towards a comprehensive vision for peace. Instead, they may as well be convinced themselves by the Israelis that more military campaigns are called for in order to assure the security of the Israeli state.

The sense of desperation and injustice that is prevalent not only among Palestinians but also across the Arab and Muslim worlds is not a good omen for Israel and its Western allies. Unless something gives concretely on the ground and unless things start moving forward on the political process, then the prospects for the future are going to be disastrous to all of us in this region, Israel included.

Amidst summer in winter, as temperatures in the last week or so ranged in the upper teens and lower twenties, people in Bethlehem were enjoying an Australia or New Zealand Christmas. In Palestine, the joy of Christmas is usually associated with the overall political and economic situation and with the health standing of family members and not necessarily with the number of gifts one receives. The joy of Christmas is also tied to peace but, needless to say, there is still no peace in the land of Christ’s birth. The prospects for peace, so many times mistakenly heralded by the most powerful leaders do not excite people here anymore. Palestinians are no longer excited by promises and speeches made by prominent politicians to bring about peace and serenity.

Politics is like a stage and most people just sit back and watch the show. The most important factor for the overwhelming majority is whether the political situation would allow them and their children to lead a normal life. Certainly, there are issues that need to be resolved but until this happens, most people prefer not to waste their energy on the rarely rewarding peace process. Palestinians have grown to be pragmatic. No, they do not acquiesce to Israeli military occupation but at the same time the overwhelming majority among them does not opt for violent resistance. The injustice that they see happening on the ground with home evictions and other transgressions in East Jerusalem, the separation wall, control mechanisms, checkpoints, settler provocations and land grabbing make them want to see violent resistance and wish that all settlers would disappear from their land once and for all. But all of us know that the settlers and the settlements will not disappear without a genuine and lasting peace agreement.

On the economic side, things in Bethlehem appear to be good with the arrival of thousands of pilgrims and tourists. One souvenir shop owner on Manger Square told me on Christmas day that business is good. He praised Russian pilgrims’ purchasing power and contrasted it to the weak American one. No, he was not making a political statement but who knows? The more tourists and pilgrims arrive in Bethlehem and in the Occupied Palestinian Territories the better for all. The economic cycle that their presence generates touches all sectors. Most often, however, tourists and pilgrims visiting Bethlehem end up staying only for a couple of hours which limits the potentially positive economic impact of their visit. Many shop owners and hoteliers in Bethlehem wish that the tourists and pilgrims would stay overnight and thus liven up the town especially around Christmas time.

The conflict in the Holy Land is not a simple one between Palestinians and Israelis. In a world where many of the young people in the Arab and Muslim countries are jobless and with no real prospects for work, study and future betterment, the Palestinian issue remains close to heart and is a strong motivation to act. The frustration that is generated by the absence of a just and lasting peace will for years act as an impetus to carry on arms and to attack the forces that are seen responsible for this grave injustice. The failure of the Western powers, and in particular the successive American Administrations, in helping resolve this conflict once and for all make them appear as responsible for the injustice as much as the Israelis. In fact, some would argue that the Western powers were responsible for creating the problem in the first place.

Christmas, irrespective of whether it is White or Sunny remains a reminder to all that injustice needs to be addressed. The future of this Land cannot be one based on occupation, power and control. Without a just and lasting peace, there are no prospects for Palestinians and Israelis to come to see each other as equal. The longer it takes to arrive at such a peace, the more complications there will be not simply in Palestine and Israel but in the region and elsewhere as well. So, let us hope that 2010 would witness a serious start towards working out a genuine and lasting peace in spite of the doubts that many of us have. .

Easter in the folkloric traditions of Palestine is a season for celebration. The community celebrates itself as it goes through the rites and rituals of Holy Week. The blessed land of Palestine celebrates itself as the hills change colors to announce the coming of spring. But springtime in the Holy Land is also a season when occasional sandy storms from the desert remind all of us of the vicissitudes of geography and the problematic cohabitation of the sown and the desert.

Mother Nature’s celebration at this time of year remains always associated with the message of resurrection. The heart beats happily at the sights of the greenery of the land and its kaleidoscopic scenery. Yet the heart is pained by the continuing unabated conflict and its many victims. As the desert sandy storms hurt the body and weigh down on the soul, the political situation with its many victims, one victim is too many, equally weighs down on body and soul.

Resurrection is a cyclical process from winter to spring; from death to life; from war to peace. In its simplest message, the process is reassuring that death, entombment and conflict are not the end of all things and that life has meaning over and above individual lives and particular attachments. That resurrection is both a divine and natural scheme cannot be disputed. One thing, though, remains disputed is whether we mortals can contribute to the process of resurrection, particularly in the long protracted conflict that has sown suffering throughout the land we all refer to as holy.

The celebration of resurrection and its fulfillment necessitates action on our part. In Palestine and Israel, the conflict needs to stop. Those who believe that their interests require a continuation of the present situation of conflict are inviting future disasters and denying all of us the chance to experience the exhilarating challenge of peace. Those who insist that the other side understands only the language of military might are inviting vengeance and revenge that will further plunge all of us in desperation. With the Jewish, Muslim and Christian celebrations that coincide with the welcoming signs of Spring in the Holy Land, all of us are called upon to turn our ways from war to peace and from death and destruction to life and hope. We cannot achieve this alone and the whole world, especially those deemed influential and powerful, is called upon to ensure that all of us here will go forward in the ways of Peace and Resurrection.