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<font size=4><b>"The biggest Yerushalayim" <br><br>
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<a href="http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/2011/01/2011122112512844113.html" eudora="autourl">
http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/2011/01/2011122112512844113.html<br>
<br>
</a><b>PA offered to concede almost all of East Jerusalem, an historic
concession for which Israel offered nothing in return.<br>
</b>Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 23 Jan 2011 20:48 GMT <br><br>
<b>Ramat Shlomo, Israel</b> – For all the international controversy over
construction at this quiet settlement in north Jerusalem, there is little
of it in evidence.<br><br>
<br>
The controversy came last year, when the Jerusalem municipality approved
1,600 new housing tenders while Joe Biden, the US vice-president, was
visiting Israel. But construction has yet to begin, and residents of this
settlement – populated mostly by Orthodox Jews, a group with one of the
highest birth rates in Israel – say politics are interfering with family
life.<br><br>
“It shouldn’t be a question of politics,” said Avraham Goldstein, a
student waiting at a bus stop in the settlement. “People need to build,
they want to have their families nearby. There are more than 18,000
people here. And Ramat Shlomo is obviously part of Jerusalem.”<br><br>
The US responded to the Ramat Shlomo announcement with anger; Biden said
it "undermines the kind of trust we need" to restart talks
between Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA).<br><br>
But The Palestine Papers reveal that Israel had no reason to halt
construction in Ramat Shlomo. That’s because Palestinian negotiators
agreed in 2008 to allow Israel to annex this settlement, along with
almost every other bit of illegal construction in the Jerusalem area – an
historic concession for which they received nothing in return.<br><br>
</font><h3><b>"We proposed that Israel annexes all
settlements"</b></h3><font size=3>The unprecedented offer by the PA
came in a <a href="http://transparency.aljazeera.net/document/2825">June
15 trilateral meeting in Jerusalem</a>, involving Condoleezza Rice, the
then-US secretary of state, Tzipi Livni, the then-Israeli foreign
minister, Ahmed Qurei, PA's former prime minister, and Saeb Erekat, the
chief Palestinian negotiator.<br><br>
</font>
<dl>
<dd>Qurei:</b> This last proposition could help in the swap process. 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.<br><br>
</dl>Erekat went on to enumerate some of the settlements that the PA was
willing to concede: French Hill, Ramat Alon, Ramat Shlomo, Gilo, Talpiot,
and the Jewish Quarter in Jerusalem’s old city. Those areas contain some
120,000 Jewish settlers. (Erekat did not mention the fate of other major
East Jerusalem settlements, like Pisgat Ze’ev and Neve Ya’akov, but
Qurei’s language indicates that they would also remain a part of
Israel.)<br><br>
<h4><b>An historic concession</b></h4><font size=3>The Palestine Papers
include a rendering of the land swap map presented in mid-2008 to
Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas by Israeli prime minister Ehud
Olmert.<br><br>
In an October 2009 meeting, Erekat also proposed a geographical division
of Jerusalem’s Old City, with control of the Jewish Quarter and
"part of the Armenian Quarter" going to the Israelis.<br><br>
Settlements in East Jerusalem are illegal under international law, but
the Israelis have long treated them as suburbs.<br><br>
Ramat Shlomo, indeed, feels little different from Jewish neighbourhoods
of Jerusalem. It is a 10-minute drive from the Knesset building, the
first exit on highway 1 after crossing the Green Line. The Jerusalem
municipality provides services in settlements like Ramat and Neke
Ya’akov. Pisgat Ze’ev will soon be connected with downtown Jerusalem via
a light rail line currently under construction.<br><br>
Israelis are deeply divided on East Jerusalem settlements – polls
conducted last year by Yedioth Ahronoth</i> and Ha’aretz</i> found that
46 per cent and 41 per cent (respectively) support an East Jerusalem
settlement freeze – but the government’s position is resolute. Binyamin
Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, likes to say that "building
in Jerusalem is no different than building in Tel Aviv”; Tzipi Livni says
her Kadima party will "never divide Jerusalem" in an agreement
with the Palestinians.<br><br>
That is the Israeli framing. But the PA embraces a similar view,
according to The Palestine Papers. And it does so unilaterally: The
Israeli side refused to even place Jerusalem on the agenda, let alone
offer the PA concessions in return for its historic offer.<br><br>
In July 2008, Udi Dekel, adviser to then-Israeli prime minister Ehud
Olmert, asked Erekat why “your side keep[s] mentioning Jerusalem in every
meeting.” Six weeks earlier, he told PA map expert Samih al-Abed that he
<a href="http://transparency.aljazeera.net/document/2648">wasn’t allowed
to discuss the subject</a>.<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Dekel:</b> I do not have permission to discuss Jerusalem without
knowing what arrangements will be in Jerusalem.<br><br>
<dd>Al-Abed:</b> And Abu Ala said we cannot discuss Ma’ale
Adumim.<br><br>
<dd>Dekel:</b> So let’s eat lunch together, and let them [leaders] decide
what to do.<br><br>
</dl>The PA, in other words, never even really negotiated the issue;
their representatives gave away almost everything to the Israelis,
without pressuring them for concessions or compromise. Erekat seemed to
realise this – perhaps belatedly – in a January 2010 meeting with [US
president Barack] Obama's adviser David Hale.<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Erekat:</b> Israelis want the two-state solution but they don’t
trust. They want it more than you think, sometimes more than
Palestinians. What is in that paper gives them the biggest Yerushalaim in
Jewish history, symbolic number of refugees return, demilitarised state…
what more can I give?<br><br>
<br>
</font>
</dl><h3><b>An impossible choice?</b></h3><font size=3>Palestinian
leaders took a more principled stand on other major settlement blocs in
the West Bank. In the same meeting where he conceded East Jerusalem,
Qurei told Livni that the PA "cannot accept the annexation of Ma’ale
Adumim, Ariel, Giv’at Ze’ev, Ephrat and Har Homa
settlements".<br><br>
All of those (with the exception of Har Homa) are located deep in the
West Bank, and their inclusion in Israel would be ruinous for the
territorial contiguity of a future Palestinian state. Ariel, for example,
is nearly halfway to Jordan, connected to Israel by an 18km stretch of
highway 5.<br><br>
But dismantling these settlements is also not an option for the Israeli
government. Ariel is a major industrial zone with nearly 18,000
residents. Ma’ale Adumim, east of Jerusalem, is a fast-growing
"bedroom community" of 30,000 people; during a recent visit, a
group of Palestinian construction worker was building family homes on the
settlement’s northeastern slopes.<br><br>
"The people who will buy these homes, they will not just leave in a
few years," said one of the workers, from the nearby village of
al-Jahalin.<br><br>
The Palestine Papers, then, underscore the seeming impossibility of
resolving the status of settlements like Ma’ale Adumim and Ariel:
Palestinian negotiators cannot accept them, and Israeli negotiators
cannot dismantle them.<br><br>
There is a third option, which Palestinian negotiators raised in several
meetings: those Jewish settlements could be allowed to remain as part of
the future Palestinian state. Ahmed Qurei made that suggestion to Tzipi
Livni several times in 2008, including this exchange in June:<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Qurei:</b> Perhaps Ma’ale Adumim will remain under Palestinian
sovereignty, and it could be a model for cooperation and
coexistence.<br><br>
<dd>Livni:</b> The matter is not simply giving a passport to
settlers.<br><br>
</dl>The Israeli foreign minister refused to entertain the idea. “You
know this is not realistic,” she
<a href="http://transparency.aljazeera.net/document/2648">told Qurei in
May</a>.<br><br>
Asked about Qurei’s offer earlier this month, residents in Ma’ale Adumim
reacted with a mix of laughter and disbelief. Some wrote it off as a
political impossibility; others worried about their safety, claiming that
they would be killed.<br><br>
There is, in other words, seemingly no mutually acceptable policy for
Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, and other major West Bank settlements within a
two-state solution – a fact the Bush administration was willing to
acknowledge in July 2008.<br><br>
<dl>
<dd>Rice:</b> I don’t think that any Israeli leader is going to cede
Ma’ale Adumim.<br><br>
<dd>Qurei:</b> Or any Palestinian leader.<br><br>
<dd>Rice:</b> Then you won’t have a state!<br><br>
</dl>Rice may prove to be correct: Two and a half years later, the
parties are no closer to a solution on settlements, and the Israeli
government may be gearing up to issue a “massive” new round of housing
permits for illegal settlers in the West Bank<br><br>
<br><br>
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