Just two day before my visit, the Israeli army conducted an early morning exercise right in the center of Aqaba as the locals were eating their pre-dawn meal in preparation for a day's fasting for Ramadan. "These provocations against a tiny village would be unacceptable in any country in the world," says Hajj Sami. "The people of this village want to live in peace, but the Israelis don't let them. It is impossible for us to leave here, there is nowhere else for us to go." 

Listening to the news from Acre yesterday I was struck by the fact that every adult in my circle of a dozen radio listeners could recount an incident in which he or she was attacked by stone-throwing Jewish youth on Yom Kippur or on the day of Sabbath in one location or another. The only explanation I can think off is the degree of submissiveness we, the Palestinian citizens of Israel, have learned to accept and practice. It is way past coexistence and several steps beyond tolerance, meekness at its best 

Once again the Israeli left will rummage through the budgets of the local authorities and talk about the sense of deprivation that is causing unrest in Acre. And once again the right will present statistics about the involvement of Israeli Arabs in terror attacks and warn against the nationalist feelings that cause them to rebel. The left will demand that money be poured on the flames in Acre, before the fire spreads to other mixed cities. 

The ultimate goal of the settler terrorists is to intimidate and terrorize indigenous Palestinians into leaving their land so that more settlers can take it over. However, despite years of permanent terror and harassment, very few Palestinians if any have left their villages and land, prompting the mostly religious terrorists to intensify their attacks against Palestinians and their property. 

Since 1967, Israel has systematically and relentlessly sought control of the entire "Holy Land" by seizing Gaza, the West Bank and all of Jerusalem. The entire area remains occupied and, according to Israeli professor and activist Jeff Halper, the aggressive "Nishul" agenda continues. It entraps and commits genocide against 1.5 million Gazans under siege in the world's largest open-air prison. It also displaces Israeli Arabs inside Israel and West Bank Palestinians for expanding Jewish settlements. 

Amongst the companies whose labor practices were criticized in the Kav LaOved report was Royalnight, a textile manufacturer owned by Royalife. In 2003, Royalife established a factory in the Barkan Industrial Park located near the Ariel settlement in the northern West Bank. Royalnight's sheet sets, bed skirts, quilted blankets, and decorated pillows are exported to and marketed in the United States and Europe. 

Though originally envisaged as an "ad-hoc" mechanism, the AHLC has now become a permanent donor mechanism and has been meeting regularly since the beginning of the Oslo process in the early 1990s. In view of the continuing Israeli occupation and the lack of Palestinian national sovereignty and control over borders and natural resources, a tripartite approach to further Palestinian economic development with parallel actions to be taken the PA, Israel and the donor community has also characterized those forums from the outset. 

With Tzipi Livni succeeding Ehud Olmert as Israel's next prime minister following her slim victory over former defense minister Shaul Mofaz on 18 September, most Palestinians are pinning few hopes on the "new" Israeli government's ability to make a real difference in relations. Initially, Livni's victory generated a modicum of euphoria, especially among observers not well-versed in Israeli politics. However, a more sobre analysis of the political realities in Israel suggests differently.