[News] Secret papers reveal slow death of Middle East peace process

[Anti-Imperialist News]

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestine-papers>
The Palestine papers
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestine-papers>




Secret papers reveal slow death of Middle East peace process

• Massive new leak lifts lid on negotiations
• PLO offered up key settlements in East Jerusalem
• Concessions made on refugees and Holy sites

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestinians-israel-biggest-jerusalem-history>• 
Israel spurned offer of 'biggest Jerusalem in history'
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-power-weakness-negotiations>• 
Palestinian leaders weak – and increasingly desperate
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/story-behind-leaked-palestine-papers>• 
The story behind the Palestine papers

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/seumasmilne>Seumas 
Milne and 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/ianblack>Ian 
Black, <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middleeast>Middle East editor
Sunday 23 January 2011 20.08 GMT
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-expose-peace-concession


The 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestine-papers>biggest 
leak of confidential documents in the history of 
the Middle East conflict has revealed that 
Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to accept 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israel>Israel's 
annexation of 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/east-jerusalem-land-palestine-papers>all 
but one of the settlements built illegally in 
occupied East Jerusalem. This unprecedented 
proposal was one of a string of concessions that 
will cause shockwaves among Palestinians and in the wider Arab world.

A cache of thousands of pages of confidential 
Palestinian records covering more than a decade 
of negotiations with Israel and the US has been 
<http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/>obtained 
by al-Jazeera TV and shared 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/story-behind-leaked-palestine-papers>exclusively 
with the Guardian. The papers provide an 
extraordinary and vivid insight into the 
disintegration of 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/timeline-middle-east-peace-talks>the 
20-year peace process, which is now regarded as all but dead.

The documents – many of which will be published 
by the Guardian over the coming days – also reveal:

• The scale of 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-power-weakness-negotiations>confidential 
concessions offered by Palestinian negotiators, 
including on the highly sensitive issue of the 
right of return of Palestinian refugees.

• How Israeli leaders privately asked for some 
Arab citizens to be transferred to a new Palestinian state.

• The intimate level of covert co-operation 
between Israeli security forces and the Palestinian Authority.

• The central role of British intelligence in 
drawing up a secret plan to crush Hamas in the 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestinian-territories>Palestinian 
territories.

• How Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders were 
privately tipped off about Israel's 2008-9 war in Gaza.

As well as the 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestinians-israel-biggest-jerusalem-history>annexation 
of all East Jerusalem settlements except Har 
Homa, 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestine-papers>the 
Palestine papers show PLO leaders privately 
suggested swapping part of the flashpoint East 
Jerusalem Arab neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah for land elsewhere.

Most controversially, they also proposed a joint 
committee to take over the Haram al-Sharif/Temple 
Mount holy sites in Jerusalem's Old City – the 
neuralgic issue that helped sink the Camp David 
talks in 2000 after Yasser Arafat refused to 
concede sovereignty around the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa mosques.

The offers were made in 2008-9, in the wake of 
George Bush's Annapolis conference, and were 
privately hailed by the chief Palestinian 
negotiator, 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-saeb-erekat-palestinian>Saeb 
Erekat, as giving Israel "the biggest 
Yerushalayim<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-saeb-erekat-palestinian> 
[the Hebrew name for Jerusalem] in history" in 
order to resolve the world's most intractable 
conflict. Israeli leaders, backed by the US 
government, said the offers were inadequate.

Intensive efforts to revive talks by the Obama 
administration foundered last year over Israel's 
refusal to extend a 10-month partial freeze on 
settlement construction. Prospects are now 
uncertain amid increasing speculation that a 
negotiated two-state solution to the conflict is 
no longer attainable – and fears of a new war.

Many of the 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-editors-note>1,600 
leaked documents – drawn up by PA officials and 
lawyers working for the British-funded PLO 
negotiations support unit and include extensive 
verbatim transcripts of private meetings – have 
been independently authenticated by the Guardian 
and corroborated by former participants in the 
talks and intelligence and diplomatic sources. 
The Guardian's coverage is 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/135224>supplemented 
by WikiLeaks cables, emanating from the 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/series/us-embassy-cables-the-documents>US 
consulate in Jerusalem and embassy in Tel Aviv. 
Israeli officials also kept their own records of 
the talks, which may differ from the confidential Palestinian accounts.

The concession in May 2008 by Palestinian leaders 
to allow Israel to annex the settlements in East 
Jerusalem – including Gilo, a focus of 
controversy after Israel gave the go-ahead for 
1,400 new homes – has never been made public.

All settlements built on territory occupied by 
Israel in the 1967 war are illegal under 
international law, but the Jerusalem homes are 
routinely described, and perceived, by Israel as 
municipal "neighbourhoods". Israeli governments 
have consistently sought to annex the largest 
settlements as part of a peace deal – and came close to doing so at Camp David.

Erekat told Israeli leaders in 2008: "This is the 
first time in Palestinian-Israeli history in 
which such a suggestion is officially made." No 
such concession had been made at Camp David.

But the offer was rejected out of hand by Israel 
because it did not include a big settlement near 
the city Ma'ale Adumim as well as Har Homa and 
several others deeper in the West Bank, including 
Ariel. "We do not like this suggestion because it 
does not meet our demands," Israel's then foreign 
minister, 
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-tzipi-livni-israel>Tzipi 
Livni, told the Palestinians, "and probably it 
was not easy for you to think about it, but I really appreciate it".

The overall impression that emerges from the 
documents, which stretch from 1999 to 2010, is of 
the weakness and growing desperation of PA 
leaders as failure to reach agreement or even 
halt all settlement temporarily undermines their 
credibility in relation to their Hamas rivals; 
the papers also reveal the unyielding confidence 
of Israeli negotiators and the often dismissive 
attitude of US politicians towards Palestinian representatives.

Last night Erekat said the minutes of the 
meetings were "a bunch of lies and half truths". 
Qureia told AP that "many parts of the documents 
were fabricated, as part of the incitement 
against the 
 Palestinian leadership".

However Palestinian former negotiator, Diana 
Buttu, called on Erekat to resign following the 
revelations. "Saeb must step down and if he 
doesn't it will only serve to show just how out 
of touch and unrepresentative the negotiators are," she said.

Palestinian and Israeli officials both point out 
that any position in negotiations is subject to 
the principle that "nothing is agreed until 
everything is agreed" and therefore is invalid without an overarching deal.




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