Palestine Papers

[silentreader]

Daily News Brief (From Foreignpolicy.com)
I haven't had time to read all the linked stories yet, but this looked interesting.

JANUARY 24, 2011
Al Jazeera releases thousands of Israeli-Palestinian negotiation documents
Al Jazeera began the release of nearly 17,000 documents on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations on Sunday. The documents -- termed the "Palestine Papers (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=we8xhmdab&et=1104292796259&s=3828&e=001tpi68O4eY9aPOXu3yNaqJjQhjMYeESyg_HgJLtF1wAk2X PkEYzKe3DwEomJl4hk3t4MoxoI0bYDPC7xvuX7UyLYv8jHh9Me s-m6bGKKP321-4-Albmg3fxUUzMOOwYYyPBpSdanYAPihKpEGD3LuqQ==)" by the network -- include memos, e-mails, maps, minutes from private meetings, accounts of high level exchanges, strategy papers and power point presentations dated between 1999 and 2010. Of the most startling revelations include an historic offer made by the Palestinian Authority in 2008 to concede (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=we8xhmdab&et=1104292796259&s=3828&e=001tpi68O4eY9Z4CowSpROMt7z3RgYyXGGNCFC0Nk128560c rGckx2iWKFeV-lZXxVbFusowUDvKQGxXc5U_aawZ-67AO7hiUwNxBIDahrnL4kM_Yuk39LXjwCr998A-XnMS-QcHtu_IlZKoqtBfsc-B9-VdkSRcTRmLfuSdZ9GhQeEfP2odzznQFXhhMc0DsaX) nearly all of East Jerusalem for which Israel would have given nothing in return. "This last proposition could help in the swap process," said the PA's former Prime Minister Ahmed Qurei in a trilateral meeting in Jerusalem that also included then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, then-Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. "We proposed that Israel annexes all settlements in Jerusalem except Jabal Abu Ghneim (Har Homa). This is the first time in history that we make such a proposition; we refused to do so in Camp David." In addition, the documents also reveal that Erekat suggested unprecedented compromises (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=we8xhmdab&et=1104292796259&s=3828&e=001tpi68O4eY9bh5GVrwInX2KBozqyHcY5dlf7SCxc79hWbL-8likhazraUMp7mE43khqBoSrDmQThYGWT4lzVIxTCQyntEkSm7 33DefAJ-j7AHRPmOx5OcxNne1ps0U8emu8K9NEq-P1TlIhwLRsltjhoXc0-ta-N9IJFTOgp8ydH6-vkF10D0pc2lRNUSS8Gm). According to minutes from meetings at the State Department, Erekat was willing to concede control over the highly controversial Haram el-Sharif -- the Temple Mount -- to be overseen by an international committee. The network will continue to release documents until Jan. 26.


Palestinian leaders deny (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=we8xhmdab&et=1104292796259&s=3828&e=001tpi68O4eY9YW-XEbw4dOjV6EqJ5evq3FHPyz4kgBlbTMiKTZHPgXJecr0PbLRQJ TRGsBPfkXO8sIzAVA2CvcEIDxTU8BqgaT9h9o1mj3WZtyWqaTv URh4nd7aSiVIOsGKybwBqBG37Nr3xLTjEgTemi6_4zZwQ1K3nl XZ45aCAl4W1JQZxTQZUsnFWtCOzUaSfzD-0laxi53BmpuUHg6uJT3_gj3eikO) offering major concessions to Israel.
Abbas says (http://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?llr=we8xhmdab&et=1104292796259&s=3828&e=001tpi68O4eY9aZS73BkoTKXmZ1FE8Tq8SFxdMf-8bbW4RW_NHvVGQne9yqjGIUS9xiBwbl4oIdQhTP41trTWkqe4c QlSK-gZibHYYLHgcoCtuE5bWsTQdUAYRzuzHG_oPHSgbbw-WCSYl1bFrHWRfbDK-s6lK-beYmG63YER7GfEL4iReA-bYaZ7jTc6TMrHmPzAKijXleMQL4zT9V6HMDDjlAgV0sdnWXY6v D_6ENFqOpeRvE7xshT_2iyLypbY-p) Palestine Papers purposely reverse Israeli and Palestinian positions.

[Richard]

I heard this report on NPR while driving to school this morning.

Richard :munchin

Palestinian Papers May Be Blow To Peace Process
NPR, 24 Jan 2011

The release on Sunday of a large cache of documents purporting to reveal Palestinian thinking during a decade of negotiations with Israel has already had significant repercussions.

Aside from initial street and diplomatic protests, observers of the region are worried that the documents could have a long-term, negative impact on the Middle East peace process.

"The concern will be that this might cause further problems in moving forward," says Edward Walker, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and Egypt. "It's not particularly helpful."

The documents indicate that the Palestinian Authority was prepared to offer deep concessions on two of the thorniest issues in negotiations with Israel: Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees.

A senior Palestinian official has accused the Gulf state of Qatar of using its Al-Jazeera TV channel to undermine the West Bank's Palestinian leadership. Al-Jazeera has published parts of a trove of 1,600 documents along with the British newspaper The Guardian.

Several dozen supporters of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attempted to break into Al-Jazeera's Ramallah office on Monday during a protest triggered by the leak.

'Startling Revelations'

The documents include "startling revelations," NPR's Lourdes Garcia-Navarro said Monday on Morning Edition.

But Palestinian officials have questioned the authenticity of the documents. Ahmed Qureia, the chief Palestinian negotiator in the 2008 round of peace talks, told The Associated Press that "many parts of the documents were fabricated, as part of the incitement against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian leadership."

State Dept. spokesman P.J. Crowley said Sunday in a tweet that the U.S. government is reviewing the documents but "cannot vouch for their veracity."

The documents suggest that the Palestinians offered historic concessions in the 2008 round of peace talks, offering to allow Israel to annex almost all of the East Jerusalem settlements and breaking from prior insistence that the so-called right of return be extended to all Palestinians.

"There are millions of refugees and their descendants scattered around the Middle East," Garcia-Navarro said. "The Palestinians basically asked for a token number of them to be allowed back in."

Undermining Authority

It's possible that the Israelis will be seen as intransigent as a result of the leaked documents, because they rejected such concessions as inadequate.

"The documents kill, with great gusto, the myth created by President Bill Clinton that the Palestinians were not a partner at Camp David and that Palestinians were to blame for the lack of a two-state deal," Amjad Atallah, who directs the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation and was a legal adviser to Palestinian negotiators from 2000 to 2003, wrote on ForeignPolicy.com.

The immediate fallout, though, is likely to land mainly on the Palestinian Authority, which already was facing questions about its standing as a voice for the Palestinian people as a whole.

The PA has almost no presence in Gaza, where Hamas is the dominant political force.

"From what I can tell, this is going to be used as a means to attack the Palestinian Authority by Hamas among others, to say that the PA was selling out the Palestinians' interests," says Brian Katulis, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a liberal-leaning think tank.

Katulis suggests that while there are still questions about the authenticity of the documents, the bigger question is how much the papers will matter in terms of undermining a peace process that has already been stuck for years.

"It certainly doesn't help, but I don't know how much it will hurt, because the process has been damaged for so long," he says.

The True Costs Of Peace

Joshua Muravchik, a self-described supporter of Israel who is a fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, suggests that while the documents are a short-term blow to the peace process, they could have a salutary effect over the long run.

The Palestinian public, Muravchik says, is being treated to a glimpse of the true costs involved in negotiating for peace. It's one thing to hold the right of return or Jerusalem sacred. But any final deal is likely to involve real sacrifice from Palestinians, he says.

"It might be a step in the long process of the Palestinian public's coming to terms with what it would actually mean to have a peace settlement," Muravchik says.

Diplomatic Fallout

Walker, the former ambassador and assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs, says that even if Palestinian negotiators expressed willingness to compromise on the thorniest issues, that doesn't mean they were ready to give in. The concessions described in the documents could have been akin to trial balloons that were floated during the course of negotiations — not a final position.

Negotiations overseen by the U.S. were always predicated on the notion that nothing was set in concrete until there was a complete agreement, he says.

"It's part of the negotiation that you get this kind of give and take without any assurance that you can take it to the bank," Walker says. "There's no question that, in the give and take of negotiations, there were undoubtedly positions that were far-reaching on the Palestinian side, but they never got anywhere."

Coming just weeks after the release of hundreds of State Department cables by WikiLeaks, Walker says that the Palestinian leak will cause further damage to the diplomatic project in general.

"If I was ambassador in Israel right now, I would be doing all my work by secure telephone," he says. "Too bad for future generations: No record."

http://www.npr.org/2011/01/24/133181412/palestinian-papers-may-cause-blow-to-peace-process

[Chris Cram]

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/

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Jerusalem Time:

Reported: 03:15 AM - Jan/24/11 Leaked Documents: PA Gave Israel Most of Jerusalem
Secret Palestinian Authority documents that were leaked to Al-Jazeera television and were published on Sunday, say that PA negotiators apparently told Israel that it could keep most of east Jerusalem.

The leaked documents, which some media outlets have termed “The Palestine Papers,” are in fact minutes of a 2008 meeting between PA, U.S. and Israeli officials. According to the documents, the Palestinian Authority suggested that Israel annex all the Jewish neighborhoods in east Jerusalem with the exception of Har Homa.

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Reported: 05:44 AM - Jan/24/11 U.S.: We're Examining the Documents
U.S. State Department spokesman, Philip Crowley, said on Sunday that the U.S. government is examining the documents released by the Al Jazeera network and which stated that the Palestinian Authority had offered the majority of east Jerusalem to Israel.

"At this time, the United States can not guarantee that the documents are genuine," said Crowley.

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Reported: 10:45 AM - Jan/24/11 Abu Mazen: Not Hiding Anything in Negotiations
PA Chief Abu Mazen expressed surprise Monday in light of revelations on Al Jazeera regarding negotiations that took place during Olmert's government between Israel and the PA.

"We have always given a full report to the Arab League regarding what had been achieved in talks with the Israelis and Americans. There is nothing we hid from Arab countries," he said.


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Reported: 10:59 AM - Jan/24/11 PA Calls Leaked ‘Peace Talks’ Documents a ‘Pack of Lies’

Who is lying, Al Jazeera, PA? Saeb Erekat calls the leaked documents on”peace talks” a “pack of lies.” Either way, it may be water over the dam.

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Reported: 11:28 AM - Jan/24/11 PA Negotiator: Israel Wants PA State More than We Do

Secret documents regarding negotiations between Israel and the PA reveal that PA Negotiator Saeb Erekat told United States diplomat David Hale that Israelis want a PA state more than Palestinians.

"Israelis want a two state solution, but they don't trust [us]. They want it more than you think, sometimes more than [the] Palestinians," Erekat said.

Nothing further since 01:13 AM - Jan/25/11

:munchin