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.”

As President Bush travels through the Middle East, the prevailing assumption is that Arab states are primarily focused on the rising Iranian threat and that their attendance at the Annapolis conference with Israel in November was motivated by this threat. This assumption, reflected in the president's speech in the United Arab Emirates yesterday, could be a costly mistake.

Israel and the Bush administration place great emphasis on confronting Iran's nuclear potential and are prepared to engage in a peace process partly to build an anti-Iran coalition. Arabs see it differently. They use the Iran issue to lure Israel and the United States into serious Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking, having concluded that the perceived Iranian threats sell better in Washington and Tel Aviv than the pursuit of peace itself.

Many Arab governments are of course concerned about Iran and its role in Iraq, but not for the same reasons as Israel and the United States. Israel sees Iran's nuclear potential as a direct threat to its security, and its support for Hezbollah and Hamas as a military challenge.

Arab governments are less worried about the military power of Hamas and Hezbollah than they are about support for them among their publics. They are less worried about a military confrontation with Iran than about Iran's growing influence in the Arab world. In other words, what Arab governments truly fear is militancy and the public support for it that undermines their own popularity and stability.

In all this, they see Iran as a detrimental force but not as the primary cause of militant sentiment. Most Arab governments believe instead that the militancy is driven primarily by the absence of Arab-Israeli peace.

This argument has been a loser in Washington, rejected by many and not taken seriously by others. The issue of Iran gets more traction inside the Beltway.

Last year, King Abdullah II of Jordan delivered an address to a joint session of Congress. His focus was not on Iran or Iraq -- or even the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi refugees his small country is painfully hosting. In urging American diplomacy, his message was clear: "The wellspring of regional division, the source of resentment and frustration far beyond, is the denial of justice and peace in Palestine." This address was hardly noticed in our press. In contrast, when the king highlights the Iranian threat to his American visitors, everyone listens.

One does not have to accept the view that Palestine explains all regional ills to acknowledge the king's central concern. Either he genuinely meant what he said or he believed it was so central a matter to his public that he needed to use this chance to address Congress to appease his constituents. (Three-quarters of Jordanians and other Arabs have ranked Palestine as their "top issue" or "among the top three" in their priorities for five years in a row.)

President Bush needs to listen. The war in Iraq has increased Saudi influence in the region, while America's Iraq troubles and its confrontation with Iran have weakened the U.S. position. America now needs Saudi Arabia more than the Saudis need Washington.

To be sure, there are many common economic and security interests. But in the end, the American presence in the Persian Gulf, which helps provide security for Arab governments, cannot be used as a lever. U.S. forces are there to protect American interests, not the local governments; a threat of withdrawal is not credible. If one adds the increased economic power that comes with the substantial cash flow generated by $100-a-barrel oil, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Cooperation Council states have the potential influence that comes with being one of the top creditors of the United States.

And even though Gulf Arab governments need the U.S. military umbrella for their security, their publics view the United States as a far greater threat than Iran. It is a challenge for these governments to have to continually depend on an America whose foreign policy is rejected by their own publics and whose record in recent years has been more of failure than of success.

Confronting Iran does not solve their dilemma. Arab-Israeli peacemaking does. Most Arabs identify successful American peace diplomacy as the single most important factor in improving their views of the United States.

When Saudi and other Arab representatives decided to attend the Annapolis conference, they hoped it would help Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert deliver the kind of visible concessions that would empower Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and dissuade Palestinians from supporting Hamas. President Bush sounded optimistic in Jerusalem. But Arab trust of speeches is low, and tangible benefits, particularly removal of Israeli roadblocks and checkpoints in the West Bank and a freeze on Israeli settlements, have not materialized. Increasing Arab skepticism about peace prospects is one reason they are hedging their bets by defusing tensions with Iran.

In making his case for confronting Iran, Bush is likely to get polite nods from Arab leaders. Don't mistake that for an embrace of American policy. What they need above all is for the United States to succeed in mediating Palestinian-Israeli peace -- not dismiss their peace calls as a fig leaf for some deeper desire for confrontation with Iran.

Should the imminent Israeli-Arab meeting in Annapolis inspire optimism?

Critics of the Bush administration who have urged active peace diplomacy are hard-pressed to gainsay its seeming turnaround after years of neglect. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has convincingly projected seriousness, and many want to support her new activism. Even if the prospects for peace seem small, most breakthroughs in history come unexpectedly, often through surprising acts of leadership.

But even aside from the obvious obstacles (divided Palestinians, weak Israeli leadership, other American priorities), it is hard to separate the prospects for peace from the way we arrived at this point - or from other regional issues that will inevitably be affected. The fact is, without quick improvements in Palestinians' lives and a new U.S. approach to the problem of Hamas, any success achieved at the summit would be short-lived.

The U.S. proposal for peace talks arrived immediately after the Hamas takeover of Gaza, which was entirely unanticipated by a policy intended to isolate Hamas and allow Fatah to defeat it. This took place, of course, after the unexpected election of Hamas, which highlighted contradictions in American policy. For many observers, it is not easy to place faith in new diplomatic moves that were in large part intended to deal with the previous policy failure.

It is also difficult to forget the other Middle East issue looming in the background - one that trumps the Palestinian-Israeli conflict as a national security priority for both Israel and the Bush administration. Any optimism about the Arab-Israeli negotiations may sideline the effort to question possible plans for war with Iran. The summit is partly intended to build an anti-Iran coalition, but is it a coalition for containment or for war? (It is probably the former, but one is uncomfortable making a bet.)

One cannot resist seeing an opportunity for diplomatic success, but regardless of the type of document that emerges out of Annapolis, two factors could doom Palestinian-Israeli peacemaking.

The first is what happens in the West Bank the morning after. Neither Israelis nor Palestinians have faith in summits and declarations. If there is no profound transformation on the ground, such as the removal of a significant number of roadblocks and checkpoints (the single most detrimental factor for the Palestinian economy and psychology), Annapolis will become a new metaphor for diplomatic failure.

It is important that Arab governments participate, but it is also important to remember why. The problem for American diplomacy is not winning Israeli public opinion. The aim is to bolster Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas' government and to retain cooperation with Arab governments facing an angry Arab public. The pressing need is for significant gains for the Palestinians. The aim of Arab participation is to help Prime Minister Ehud Olmert domestically (through normalization with states such as Saudi Arabia) to offer tangible Israeli concessions. Without these, progress is impossible.

The second factor is Hamas, which not only controls Gaza but has significant assets in the West Bank. Hamas' central case - that diplomacy does not pay - may be made for it at the summit. But assuming the parties succeed in offering tangible benefits, Hamas will still be a factor. It retains the capacity to revive large-scale violence, which would inevitably alter priorities and make diplomacy more difficult. And if the aim of diplomacy is to isolate and ultimately defeat Hamas, its incentive to act early will be great. One reason it moved forcefully in Gaza was the perception that Americans, Arabs and Mr. Abbas were helping Fatah militarily and economically to enable it to overtake Hamas. Why would Hamas wait?

This suggests that any prospect of success at Annapolis requires a new strategy toward Hamas. As soon as the summit ends, a signal must be sent to Hamas that it could gain if it at least acquiesced. This entails offering it economic relief in Gaza, not additional hardship. It entails encouraging Arab allies, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt, to engage it and try to prepare conditions for a revival of negotiations with Fatah. Hamas will, of course, have to accept that there can be only one Palestinian Authority, but there are signs of divisions within Hamas on this issue already.

Without such a new strategy, it is difficult to imagine how even modest progress could be attained in the weeks after the Annapolis meeting.

Two weeks after the end of hostilities in the Lebanese-Israeli war - dubbed by some in the Arab press as the "sixth war" - Israel and Lebanon have been busy reassessing the meaning of the "victories" they both claimed. Only in Washington have certainty and absence of serious reflection about the nation's role in the war prevailed.

Hizbullah's leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, declared that he was surprised by the Israeli decision to wage war over the taking of two of its soldiers prisoner, and that had he known, he would not have ordered the prisoner-taking. In Israel, as Prime Minister Ehud Olmert announced a limited inquiry into the conduct of the war, the primary opposition came from those asking for a bigger and more independent investigation. An editorial in the newspaper Haaretz told the story well as it wondered why Israelis need to investigate a "victory."

In Lebanon, the sense that Israel faced in Hizbullah one of its toughest Arab enemies and was prevented from achieving its stated aims was overwhelmed by the degree of devastation that the war brought. Divisions that were suspended during the war by anger over the magnitude of the Israeli attacks began to surface again.

The debate in Israel has focused not only on the shortcomings of the Israeli military and on the weaknesses in homeland defenses but also on what the aims of the war were and whether it could have ended sooner. Some military officers expressed the belief that the war could have and should have been stopped earlier. In particular, two junctures in the war were the subject of much discussion: the period after the first week of fighting, when, it has been revealed, military officers believed the war could have been stopped as they believed that achievable objectives had been attained; and the last weekend of fighting, when Israel enlarged its campaign after it was clear that a UN resolution to end the fighting was imminent. The result was that in the last few days of hostilities, Israel suffered some of its highest casualties in the war, Hizbullah fired some of its most intense barrages of rockets on Israeli cities, and the Israeli military dropped a significant number of cluster bombs on heavily populated areas that are continuing to cause casualties among returning civilians.

As for Nasrallah, despite his admission of surprise, he has not apologized for the war, believes he has won and blames Israel for the fighting. In one of his earlier speeches during the war, Nasrallah explained his reasoning. He told of an Israeli war plan against Hizbullah to take place in September or October. Although he didn't state that the aim of the prisoner-taking operation was to pre-empt the Israeli plan, he suggested that Lebanon was "fortunate" in that Hizbullah had inadvertently accelerated the war while depriving Israel of being fully ready.

But while many Lebanese and Arabs believe that Israeli behavior cannot simply be explained by the taking of its soldiers as hostages, the level of Lebanese devastation was bound to translate into some blame of Hizbullah - especially among the groups and politicians that had always worried about its rising military power. What gives Nasrallah the right, many Lebanese wondered, to "miscalculate" on their behalf in the first place - especially when the consequences are so painful for all? http://www.dailystar.com.lb Despite the intense debate in Israel, the government has not expressed any regret for its basic approach. There, too, Olmert was quick to argue that whatever the costs of the war, he believed a later war would have been even costlier, as Hizbullah could have acquired even more weapons. The stationing of more UN troops and Lebanese soldiers in South Lebanon, and the embargo on weapons transfers to Hizbullah, are highlighted as legitimate and important Israeli successes. But no one can escape the reality that the stated objectives at the outset of the war - disarming Hizbullah, ending its capacity to fire rockets and freeing the Israeli soldiers - were not achieved. More importantly, Israel's deterrence has been undermined by the war's outcome and international sympathy has been undercut by the vast civilian devastation.

Both Hizbullah and Israel were surprised by the other, and both paid some price for this surprise. But the debate about who won the war is only in part about performance on the battlefield and achievement of stated objectives. It is in good part about internal politics and who wins and loses at home. It is also about how the rest of the world perceives the war, as this affects one's projection of power, the ability to deter future attacks and the extent to which each side attracts external support. Here, there is little doubt that most Arabs and Muslims, and many others, believe Israel was defeated by Hizbullah, which, even as it faces criticism in Lebanon, has gained millions of supporters in the Middle East.

In Washington, the official story remains the same: Israel has won, even as the media have conveyed a more diverse picture.

This is not surprising given the close association of the Bush administration with the Israeli conduct of the war; an Israeli victory is, in effect, an administration victory. But even as they mourn their many dead, Lebanese and Israelis are intensely debating the war, with some sense that both sides would have been better off had it ended earlier.

It is thus surprising that in the American democracy there is less reflective discourse among our leaders about the role of the administration in the failure to act sooner.

Shibley Telhami is Anwar Sadat professor for peace and development at the University of Maryland and senior fellow at the Saban Center of the Brookings Institution.

Ever since the death of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, optimism about the prospects for a Palestinian-Israeli peace has been in the air. For months, the Bush administration and the Israeli government of Ariel Sharon have pinned the blame for the violence and the stalemate on the late Palestinian leader. It seemed reasonable to assume that a new era has begun. The Palestinian presidential elections held last Sunday resulted in the election of Mahmoud Abbas, who is favored by Israel, the United States and most Arab leaders. But the reality is far more challenging. The election campaign revealed the problems facing Abbas: On the one hand, he needs the trust and support of his Palestinian constituency, which has always worried that he may be too compromising on core issues. On the other, he needs to have a good working relationship with the Israelis and the Bush administration as he stakes his reputation on his ability to revive serious negotiations. This will not be an easy task, as events in the week prior to (and indeed since) the election demonstrated. In his attempt to energize his Fatah base before the, especially among refugees in the Gaza Strip, Abbas invoked the right of Palestinians to return to their original homes in Israel, which raised red flags for Israelis. In his commitment to reject violence, he maintained the trust of many Israelis but lost the support of many Palestinians, half of whom want to maintain a militant option. These moves were mitigated by an assumption shared by most people that these were strictly campaign positions. The judgment will undoubtedly be harsher now that the elections are over. Abbas' first task is to establish a sense of popular legitimacy. He started in an unenviable position. Regarded as weak and as Washington's man, Abbas was overshadowed by Arafat's legacy. In the weeks after Arafat's death, public-opinion polls showed him trailing a younger Palestinian leader serving multiple life sentences in an Israeli prison: Marwan Barghouti. Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement, had gained popularity in the Palestinian areas at the expense of the Palestine Liberation Organization's main faction, Fatah, which Abbas represents. In the end, neither Barghouti nor Hamas participated in the election for president of the Palestinian Authority, which meant no serious competitor for Abbas, who also had the backing of the PLO and the Fatah organizations behind him. This helped assure Abbas' victory, but also reduced its legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

Everyone wants free elections, but people want choices, real choices. Elections are held even under authoritarian regimes, but few people take the outcomes as true reflections of public will when these are regarded as entirely predictable. This may explain why a candidate like Mustafa Barghouti (a distant cousin of Marwan Barghouti), who had no organizational support behind him, took in over 20 percent of public support, reflecting a trend evident in pre-election polls. Abbas must now win public support if he is to be able to negotiate credibly with the Israelis. Up to now, his balancing act has been predicated on a vision of what drives Israeli and Palestinian attitudes most. His "red line" in the relationship with Israel has been to remain steadfast in his opposition to the use of violence against Israelis. This is his most central strategic decision regarding Israel. This, he hopes, will allow him to take tougher negotiating positions on issues such as the right of return and Jerusalem. That approach adds to his public support without seriously undermining his relationship with Israel.

In fact, during the failed Palestinian-Israeli negotiations at Camp David, Abbas was in favor of firmer Palestinian negotiating positions than other members of the negotiating team. In his important relationship with the Bush administration, he hopes to gain continued support not only through his rejection of violence, but also through a projection of a commitment to serious reforms of the Palestinian authority, which the administration has made a central issue. If he is seen to be responsive, the administration could claim political credit, which could turn into a U.S. stake in supporting Abbas. If the mere rhetorical balancing act during the campaign was difficult to maintain without serious criticism, the implementation of his positions will be doubly difficult. What are the main questions surrounding Abbas' positions? First, and most important, can he enforce the "no violence" strategy, either through a deal with Hamas or by risking civil war in trying to disarm them? Second, can he do so early, as stipulated by the "road map" - the Quartet peace plan calling for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state - before he offers his public something tangible?

Third, can he insist on the right of return as a negotiating strategy without losing Israeli public opinion? And fourth, can he implement real reform without losing the critical support of the institutions he needs to hold back Hamas? Abbas is not Yasser Arafat, and his limited popularity and assertiveness in the shadow of the late Palestinian leader cannot be used as a guide in assessing his likely behavior now that he's been elected. Here, the comparison between the hugely popular Arab-nationalist former president of Egypt, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and his successor, Anwar Sadat, comes to mind. Before Nasser's death in 1970, Sadat was an unassuming loyal subordinate who was taken lightly by most analysts. Yet he moved swiftly to assert his power with dramatic military and political moves, ultimately leading to a remarkable peace treaty with Israel that changed the tide of politics in the Middle East. Abbas can certainly carve out his own legacy quickly and grow out of Arafat's shadow.

But the comparison between Sadat and Abbas has its limits. Sadat was a president of the most popular and powerful Arab country. Egypt had the power to wage war and its alliances were consequential around the world. Sadat's moves occurred during the Cold War, when the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union in the Middle East gave Egypt special leverage with Washington Even so, few analysts believe that Sadat could have embarked on his bold moves toward Israel had he not first acquired the legitimacy as a warrior by waging, together with Syria, the painful October 1973 war to restore part of the Sinai. In the end, Sadat still lost his life. Abbas does not have the power of Egypt nor the leverage of the former Soviet Union. He still needs to earn the support of the Palestinian public to offer the kind of compromises that a peace agreement requires - and he needs to do it while rejecting the use of violence as a method. Abbas also remains highly dependent on the actions of others. Most of all, he will be dependent on the policies of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, the degree of diplomatic involvement of the Bush administration and the extent to which Arab leaders will lend their support. For now, all are behaving as though there is a historic opportunity presented by the death of Arafat. In reality, it is hard to differentiate tactical short-term calculations from profound change in strategic outlook in assessing the current conciliatory approach of the parties. For Sharon, there are many good reasons to cooperate with Abbas in the short term, regardless of his broader strategic objectives. He is in the midst of implementing a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and would benefit from the cooperation of the Palestinian Authority, particularly if it can restrain Hamas and prevent it from taking over after Israeli withdrawal. Sharon had said all along that he viewed Arafat as the main obstacle to peace, and needs to show that his passing brought new opportunities. And he knows that his key ally, President George W. Bush, would like to see a little more quiet on the Israeli-Palestinian front as he tackles the pressing Iraqi situation, especially as the elections there draw near. Bush, too, had an interest in the Palestinian elections, as the issue of democracy has become one of his central themes. Arab governments want to prevent Hamas from taking over, and the Egyptians in particular have an interest in an orderly Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, which borders their territory.

But if these tactical interests are the primary reasons for optimism, the parties are setting themselves up for a risky disappointment. Besides Abbas' own position, one critical factor more than any other will affect the prospect of peace: the extent to which Sharon will be responsive on the outline of a final settlement that the Palestinians can live with. Here, it is unlikely that any Palestinian leader can accept less than what Yasser Arafat rejected.

Sharon, by most accounts, seeks merely an interim arrangement without tackling all the final-status issues. It is unlikely that Abbas' public can allow him to make the tough compromises without knowing what the end result will be. Certainly, implementing any agreement could take time and be based on sequential arrangements. But unless the basic outlines of the result are known at the outset, interim arrangements are perfect opportunities for those who want to disrupt the process. Today, even with the Palestinian elections, there are many more people on both sides seeking disruption than there were four years ago.