Israel insists Vanunu still poses a security threat and he is banned from leaving Israel - including visiting the West Bank and Gaza Strip - or talking to foreigners without permission.
This July, Barak went the final mile, offering concessions so sweeping that even the U.S. negotiators at Camp David were astonished: giving up virtually all the West Bank (including the militarily crucial Jordan Valley), offering to divide Jerusalem, ready even to renounce Israeli sovereignty over Judaism's holiest site, the Temple Mount.
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The report claims that Israel specifically sought to punish Gaza's civilians because many of them back Hamas, which won a general election in 2006 in the Palestinian territories, including the separate but bigger West Bank.
With violence as a backdrop, Palestinian and Israeli delegations began discussions this week about so-called core issues in their conflict, including Israeli settlements in the West Bank, the right of Palestinian refugees to return to Israel and Jerusalem as the shared capital of a future Palestinian state.
His actions on the ground - including a promise not to remove any Jewish settlers from the West Bank - appear to be designed to reassure his supporters that those circumstances are unlikely to arise.
All settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, are considered illegal under international law, although Israel disputes this.
Despite objections, however, the motion was passed, and afterwards the TUC said in a statement that the boycott would target "agricultural products that originate in illegal settlements" in the West Bank, including dates, herbs, fruit and vegetables.
Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in January that since 1967, Israel has established about 150 settlements in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, in addition to about 100 "outposts" erected by settlers without official authorization.
The hope was that, over a weekend of deliberations, Israel and the Palestinians would at last sign the long-delayed interim deal, including Israel's withdrawal from a further 13% of the West Bank.
Today, more than a quarter-million Israelis live in the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem.
An indeterminate number of others, including an Israeli Arab shot last week in the West Bank, have also been killed by vigilantes.
Palestinian protesters burned tyres and threw rocks, while police fired stun grenades and tear gas, as rioting broke out in a number of areas, including the Shu'fat refugee camp, al-Eisaweyah and the Qalandia checkpoint between Israel and the West Bank.
This cuts through the western side of the West Bank and is poised to loop round the five largest Jewish settlement blocks there, including three surrounding Jerusalem.
London's mayor, Boris Johnson, wants central swaths of the capital, including the financial district (known as the City or the Square Mile), the South Bank and the West End, completely exempted from the new rules, and has lodged an official complaint with the government.
He was referring to what are called the core issues of the conflict including the final borders of a Palestinians state, the status of Jerusalem, the removal of Israeli settlements from the West Bank, and the fate of Palestinian refugees.
"The United States opposes all unilateral actions, including West Bank settlement activity and housing construction in East Jerusalem, as they complicate efforts to resume direct, bilateral negotiations, and risk prejudging the outcome of those negotiations, " deputy spokesman Mark Toner said.
Members have been falling over themselves to introduce supposedly pro-Israel legislation, including a resolution endorsing Israel's right to annex the West Bank - proposed by a Republican - and a move to cut off military aid to any country supporting the Palestinian bid for UN membership, sponsored by a Democrat.
The visit will test the sometimes-strained relationship between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu over issues including U.S. calls to freeze Jewish settlement building in the West Bank and Mr. Netanyahu's wish for the U.S. to take a harder line against Iran's nuclear program.
In December a Polish foundation brought schoolchildren from Poland, Germany, the West Bank and Israel together to re-enact historical trials, including Nuremberg, as part of a project about international justice.
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That consistently growing presence in East Jerusalem and the West Bank has caused great tension between Israel and the Arab world, including the Palestinians.
If the experience with Gaza is any guide, however, Hamas will turn the West Bank into a Taliban-style safe-haven for other terrorists including: al Qaeda, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard.
Last weekend, as the Americans struggled to unfreeze the talks, the Israeli cabinet gave initial approval to a plan that expands Jerusalem's municipal borders, partly by including (though not annexing) two Jewish settlements east and north of the city and the West Bank land between them and the city (see article).
But Mr Arafat was almost certainly not behind the gunfights, between Fatah activists, including members of the Palestinian police force, and Israeli soldiers, that erupted in various parts of the West Bank.
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