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.”

Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton on Monday committed herself personally to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, saying that finding a solution is "in my heart, not just my portfolio."

Mrs. Clinton cited the persistent peacemaking efforts of her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and linked a solution to the future of Israeli and Palestinian children.

"I personally am very committed to this, and I know it can be done. I believe that with all my heart," she told reporters at a donors' conference for Gaza at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheik. "To me, this is about what happens to the children in Gaza and the West Bank. I got into politics, because I care deeply what happens to children."

In a long series of meetings with Arab and European officials, Mrs. Clinton heard how much hope they attach to the new administration's commitment to resolving the decades-long conflict. At the same time, she heard skepticism about the peace process in light of the results of the recent Israeli election and the deep divisions among the Palestinian leadership.

"You'll see the amount of effort the United States puts into this," she said.

Mrs Clinton, who was accompanied by special envoy George Mitchell on her first trip to the region as secretary of state, promised to consult with friendly Arab governments on all major decisions, including the peace process and dealing with Iran's nuclear ambitions.

"Some of you know that George Mitchell's father was Irish and his mother was Lebanese. Well, he solved half of his family's problems, so now he is here working on the second half, and we hope that we will see it come to fruition," she said in a humorous reference to Mr. Mitchell's role in negotiating the 1998 Good Friday agreement in Northern Ireland.

When asked if she thought there could be a Palestinian state by year's end, Mrs. Clinton said she is "a very hopeful person," but then gave a typically diplomatic answer.

"It would be our hope that there would certainly be progress that was tangible, that positively affected the lives of the Palestinian people, which led to the possibility, the probability of a viable state," she said just minutes before flying to Israel.

Mrs. Clinton joined officials from about 70 countries and international organizations and pledged more than $900 million in U.S. aid for Gaza.

Mrs. Clinton is scheduled to meet with the current Israeli government Tuesday, as well as with Likud party leader Benjamin Netanyahu, who is expected to form a new Cabinet soon.

Among the issues likely to be discussed is Israel's continued expansion of Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

The peace group Peace Now revealed Monday that the Israeli housing ministry has been given initial authorization to build 15,000 new housing units in the West Bank.

Israel's left-wing parties are hoping that Mrs. Clinton will give priority to the issue.

"Sometimes you need your friends to prevent yourself from doing things that will hurt yourself," said Yariv Oppenheimer, the director of Peace Now and an unsuccessful candidate for parliament on the Labor party ticket.

Israel's official position is that it will establish no new settlements, but it will allow expansion to account for what it calls "natural growth."

Opponents of settlements say that undermines the possibility of establishing a Palestinian state.

Outside specialists say U.S. pressure is key to halting settlement growth.

"It has become clear that no Israeli government on its own can address the settlement question," said Scott Lasensky, who co-authored a review of 20 years of U.S. mediation in the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Joshua Mitnick contributed to this report from Tel Aviv.

Aides to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said yesterday that he is "depressed" by the lack of progress in negotiations with Israel and views President Bush's summit with Arab leaders this month as a crucial test for U.S.-brokered peace efforts.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, meanwhile, fought for his political life amid speculation he might be forced to resign. Mr. Olmert, the subject of at least two corruption inquiries, was questioned by police investigators Friday.

Despite his frustration, Mr. Abbas thanked visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for "exerting utmost efforts" to help Israelis and Palestinians reach an agreement to establish a Palestinian state.

"He is really depressed right now," one of Mr. Abbas' senior aides said. "When he goes to visit other Arab countries, he tells them that we negotiate with the Israelis on a daily basis, but we have nothing to show for it."

The aide, who asked that his name not be used because he was describing private conversations involving the Palestinian leader, said Mr. Abbas thinks Miss Rice is doing the best she can.

As Miss Rice headed for the Middle East, Palestinians accused Israel of blocking a $650 million investment in a new cellular-telephone network for the West Bank and of failing to meet a pledge to remove some roadblocks that prevent Palestinian travel between West Bank cities.

The Palestinian aide said the most pressing issue is whether Mr. Bush is willing to pressure Israel to stop expanding Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

"If the settlement issue is not resolved, any agreement [with Israel] Abbas brings to the Palestinian people they will not take seriously," the aide said.

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni told reporters later in the day that settlements "are not obstacles" to a peace agreement and that "Israel has no hidden agenda."

Mr. Abbas said at a news conference with Miss Rice that the Bush administration is "very serious" about reaching an agreement by January.

But Palestinian officials and other politicians said Mr. Abbas has expressed doubts privately that Mr. Bush will truly press Israel to stop settlement activity.

Mr. Bush is expected to visit Israel for the celebration of its 60th anniversary next week and to meet with Arab leaders in Egypt to discuss the peace process.

"The Americans know that one thing they can do to prove that they are serious is to end settlement activity, but I don't think they will do it," said Mustafa Barghouti, an independent member of the Palestinian parliament.

Mr. Bush has said the Palestinian state should not look like Swiss cheese, but Mr. Barghouti insisted that is exactly "what is happening on the ground." He suggested that Mr. Abbas give Miss Rice a tour of those areas.

Even without a tour, Miss Rice had a packed schedule yesterday. In addition to meeting with Mr. Abbas in his Ramallah office, she had lunch with Ahmed Qureia, the chief Palestinian negotiator.

Earlier in the day, she had breakfast in Jerusalem with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, and then held joint talks with Mr. Barak and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Salam Fayyad, whom she had seen twice in London two days earlier.

After she returned from the West Bank, Miss Rice met with Mrs. Livni, the foreign minister, first alone, and then together with Mr. Qureia. She ended the day with dinner with Mr. Barak.

Before leaving Israel today, she is scheduled to have breakfast with Mr. Olmert, with whom she dined Saturday night. Mr. Olmert is set to hold talks with Mr. Abbas over lunch.

Miss Rice called the settlement activity "particularly problematic to the atmosphere of trust that is needed." Palestinian officials said that similar U.S. public statements in the past have had no impact on Israeli actions.

Analysts often have said Mr. Olmert's political woes make the timing of negotiations difficult, especially after police unexpectedly questioned the prime minister Friday over a corruption probe.

Israeli media quoted unidentified legal sources and unnamed political officials as saying the suspicions against Mr. Olmert were particularly serious and could force his resignation, a move likely to delay peace efforts he has pursued at U.S. behest, Reuters news agency reported in a dispatch from Jerusalem.

"I answered all questions I was asked. I cooperated with the investigators," Mr. Olmert said in his first public remarks about his latest interview by police. "I have an agenda as Israel's prime minister. I intend to carry on with this agenda."

Mr. Olmert, 62, has denied any wrongdoing.

Mrs. Livni said "investigators must be given a chance to finish their job" in the corruption inquiry.

"There are all kinds of rumors going around from 'those in the know,' and these rumors are grave and malicious," Mr. Olmert said before his weekly Cabinet meeting. "Once the authorized channels make things clear, this will return to normal proportions."

A planned follow-up to November's highly-touted Middle East peace conference in Annapolis will likely be postponed or even canceled because of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' reluctance to take part, Western and Palestinian diplomats said yesterday.

The diplomats said Mr. Abbas, who meets with President Bush at the White House tomorrow, is doubtful that anything of value would be accomplished at the conference, set to take place in Moscow in June.

"President Abbas is not that keen on a conference in Moscow anymore," one Arab official said. "It's not clear what exactly its focus would be and what results it will produce."

A Russian official said no decision had been made, but he insisted that the idea is still on the table. It is "being discussed among Quartet members," he said in reference to the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations.

More than 50 countries participated in the Annapolis conference in November.

A Western official said Israel was never interested in attending the Moscow sequel because it does not see any benefit in another large gathering and prefers to negotiate directly with the Palestinians and only a few other countries.

The Jewish state also is opposed to Russia's plan to put Israeli-Syrian issues, such as the Golan Heights, on the conference agenda. Israel wants to resolve those matters separately, and the United States agrees, the official added.

An Israeli official said participation "depends on the parameters" of the conference. He noted that his country always prefers to "sit down with the other party," rather than get distracted by more international events.

"How many other detours can you take?" he said.

All officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to comment publicly on behind-the-scenes diplomacy.

During a visit to Moscow last week, Mr. Abbas called for a conference "as soon as possible" in order to push "the peace process forward."

Palestinian and other Arab diplomats said he has had second thoughts and will not be pushing for the gathering anymore when he meets Mr. Bush. At the same time, they said Mr. Abbas would probably attend, albeit reluctantly, if it happens.

Another Arab official said the United States does not support a bigger role for Russia in the peace process, such as hosting a major conference.

Mr. Abbas said yesterday that he would meet again with Mr. Bush in Egypt on May 17, after the president's visit to Israel for its 60th anniversary. The Israeli official said his government had not received an invitation for the Egypt meeting.

During a stop in Iceland on his way to Washington, Mr. Abbas said former President Jimmy Carter had "failed to convince" the militant Palestinian group Hamas that it should endorse a two-state peace deal with Israel.

Mr. Carter said after private meetings with Hamas leaders in Egypt and Syria last week that the Islamist group would accept the deal if approved in a referendum. But Hamas said on Monday that it would continue to reject Israel's right to exist.

After ruling out a truce with Israel that Egypt has been trying to broker, the group said yesterday that it would accept a cease-fire in just the Gaza Strip. Hamas militants have been firing rockets into Israel from Gaza, prompting retaliatory Israeli air strikes.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to meet with Mr. Abbas today, disputed Mr. Carter's assertion that the State Department had not warned him against meeting with Hamas members.

"I just don't want there to be any confusion," Miss Rice said in Kuwait. "The United States is not going to deal with Hamas, and we had certainly told President Carter that we did not think meeting with Hamas was going to help."

Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama weighed in on the issue yesterday, saying Mr. Carter's negotiation attempt was a "bad idea."

"What we are seeing now is that, even as President Carter suggests there was breakthrough, you had some of the same old rhetoric coming out of Hamas representatives with regard to Israel," Mr. Obama told reporters while campaigning in Pennsylvania on primary day.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said today, before departing Jerusalem at the end of a two-day trip, that Israelis and Palestinians had agreed to resume peace talks.

“The parties have just informed me that they intend to resume negotiations and that they are in contact with one another as to how to bring this about,” Miss Rice told reporters at a joint press conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni.

Afterward, Miss Rice boarded a plane and headed back to Washington. She gave no indication when talks would resume.

The Bush administration is seeking a final peace agreement by the time President Bush leaves office in less than a year.

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas issued a statement through his office that appeared to confirm the secretary's remarks.

It said Mr. Abbas intended to “resume the peace process and negotiations."

Mr. Abbas suspended his participation in talks with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert over the weekend in response to a five-day Israeli ground and air assault on the Gaza Strip.

The attack was prompted by daily rocket attacks on Israeli cities by Hamas militants who are in control of Gaza, including the introduction of a new, longer-range rocket that increases at least fivefold the number of Israelis under fire.

Rocket fire continued yesterday, prompting Israel to end a one-day lull in its attacks and begin a new ground and air assault on Gaza.

The assault with tanks and aircraft came as Miss Rice was having dinner with Mr. Olmert in Jerusalem, which is about 50 miles away from Gaza.