Palestinian negotiating positions leaked

[laptop]

1600 documents have leaked from the Palestinian side of the "peace talks":

The 1,600 confidential records of hundreds of meetings between Palestinian, Israeli and US leaders, as well as emails and secret proposals, were leaked to the Qatar-based satellite TV channel al-Jazeera and shared exclusively with the Guardian. They cover the period from the runup to the ill-fated Camp David negotiations under US president Bill Clinton in 2000, to private discussions last year involving senior officials and politicians in the Obama administration.

...

The bulk of the documents are records, contemporaneous notes and sections of verbatim transcripts of meetings drawn up by officials of the Palestinian negotiation support unit (NSU), which has been the main technical and legal backup for the Palestinian side in the negotiations.

The unit has been heavily funded by the British government via the free-market thinktank the Adam Smith Institute. Other documents originate from inside the PA's extensive US- and British-sponsored security apparatus.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/story-behind-leaked-palestine-papers

Adam Smith Institute?

And the headline content:

Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to allow Israel to annex all but one of the settlements built in occupied East Jerusalem in the most far-reaching concessions ever made over the bitterly contested city. The offer was turned down by Israel's then foreign minister as inadequate.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestinians-israel-biggest-jerusalem-history

 

[Balbi]

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

You what? If I was a PA leader, i'd be packing my bags now.

 

[FridgeMagnet]

And there are people who wonder why Hamas got voted in.

 

[dylans]

These papers reveal which those of us who support the Palestinian national cause have known for decades. That the peace process is a transparent sham, a stalling tactic while Israel continues its annexation of Palestinian land. That Britain, the UN and the US are complicit in the ethnic annihilation of an entire people and the Palestinian leadership are shown to be the treacherous cowards they are

Abbas should be taken out and shot.

Excellent article here by Karma Nabulsi

It is now on record that they have betrayed, lied and cheated us of basic rights, while simultaneously claiming they deserved the trust of the Palestinian people.

This claim of representative capacity – and worse, the assertion they were representing the interests of Palestinians in their struggle for freedom – had become increasingly thin over the last decade and a half. The claim they were acting in good faith is absolutely shattered by the publication of these documents today, and the information to be revealed over this coming week. Whatever one's political leanings, no one, not the Americans, the British, the UN, and especially not these Palestinian officials, can claim that the whole racket is anything other than a brutal process of subjugating an entire people.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/23/middle-east-peace-process-over-palestinians

 

[ymu]

Explosive stuff. A lot like the wikileaks leaks - it's not so much new information, as proof of what was already known. And in that respect, it is very important indeed. No surprises on the streets of Palestine, but maybe, just maybe, some leverage to finally get rid of some of these corrupt cunts.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Adam Smith Institute?

Guardian mistake, it's actually another org called Adam Smith International.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Back on topic, I'm wondering if we're now into an age of super leaks, big dramatic leaks to shape politics which are nothing more than just another weapon in politics as usual? Has the Wikileaks model just become incorporated into the status quo?

 

[rightone]

It has been no big secret to anyone who follow this problem with Israel and the Palestinian people that Israeli leaders do not want to settle this matter. They have not taken all the land they still want. They do not want to have to give back any land they have taken and not pay the people a fair value [if they will except it] for the land or return what they have taken. It should be the original owners option. Until there is a Palestine state to protect what is left and demand return of the land to the people or a fair settlement for what they have taken from people who are not Jewish, there will be no peace. The other countries will have to just take action and tell Israel what they can have and to settle it or they will settle it using force if necessary. And Israel will have to live with it. Where are the PC people to put a end to Jewish only housing. If a white only housing was put in place in the US or UK the PC people would be all over the place on how wrong it is and governments should put a end to it. Israel will have to be forced to end this problem, they will not stop until the screws are put to them to end it.

 

[ViolentPanda]

It has been no big secret to anyone who follow this problem with Israel and the Palestinian people that Israeli leaders do not want to settle this matter. They have not taken all the land they still want. They do not want to have to give back any land they have taken and not pay the people a fair value [if they will except it] for the land or return what they have taken.

Payment would constitute an acceptance that the land did not belong to the state of Israel in the first place, which wouldn't please those nationalist-Zionists who buy into the whole eretz Yisroel schtick.

It should be the original owners option. Until there is a Palestine state to protect what is left and demand return of the land to the people or a fair settlement for what they have taken from people who are not Jewish, there will be no peace.

Of course there won't, and there's no intention for there to be, either by the state of Israel, or the neighbouring Arab states, despite what the Palestinians themselves might want.

The other countries will have to just take action and tell Israel what they can have and to settle it or they will settle it using force if necessary.

Never happen, though. The state of Israel is too good a customer to too many states who'd be happy to stymie any UN-based solution.

And Israel will have to live with it. Where are the PC people to put a end to Jewish only housing.

I don't give a fuck about "Jewish only housing", that's just a symptom. What I'm against is that the state of Israel is (and has been since independence) a Jewish state, because that automatically renders anyone who qualifies as "not a Jew" as a second-class (at best) citizen. It's hardly conducive of an accepting attitude if the state automatically renders the Goyim as only in Israel on sufferance.

If a white only housing was put in place in the US or UK the PC people would be all over the place on how wrong it is and governments should put a end to it. Israel will have to be forced to end this problem, they will not stop until the screws are put to them to end it.

Which is vanishingly unlikely to happen in a world where realpolitik.

 

[dylans]

This places the recent Tunisian revolt and prospects of a wider Arab revolt in perspective too. There is no love for Israel amongst the populations of Arab North Africa and the middle East. If Tunisia does domino into a wider Arab revolution Israel will lose the friendly dictatorships of the likes of Egypt and Jordan.

 

[Random]

Guardian mistake, it's actually another org called Adam Smith International.

ASInternational is merely the international consulting wing of the AS Inst.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

ASInternational is merely the international consulting wing of the AS Inst.

Really? My mistake, thought it was another entity.

 

[Random]

Really? My mistake, thought it was another entity.

Same people, at least was a few years ago, and AS Int mostly works on privatising projects abroad, often funded by DfID.

 

[pk]

The Palestinian word for Jerusalem is NEVER Yerushayalim.

That will stick in the minds of the occupied people forever.

Unbelievable arse-kissing. Must have been a lot of cash on the table...

 

[weltweit]

In whose interests was this leak.

It is hardly in Israels interests.

It certainly isn't in Abbas's interests.

The only group whose interests it really could be is Hamas.

Hamaz does Wikileaks perhaps !

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Interesting piece on the New Yorker site about the future of leaking: A WIKILEAKS ARMS RACE?

Earlier this month, Al Jazeera launched a new feature on its Web site called the Transparency Unit—the network’s in-house version of WikiLeaks. When the unit first went online, there was not much coverage about it in English, but that changed over the weekend when Al Jazeera announced that it had gained access to a large tranche of confidential documents, now being called the “Palestine Papers.” The papers appear to reveal internal diplomatic negotiations among Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and the United States, to further the peace process in the Middle East. (Al Jazeera has shared the documents with the Guardian, which has published extensive reporting on them.) In a previous post, I noted that WikiLeaks was increasingly adapting to the standards of conventional journalism in its editorial policy. The emergence of the Transparency Unit suggests that an opposite trend may also be slowly at work.

So far, Al Jazeera has not revealed much about the functionality of the Transparency Unit, except for a few details on its submissions page. The network promises that it has created a “secure terminal” for leaks. “All materials are encrypted while they are transmitted to us, and they remain encrypted on our servers,” it says. Al Jazeera also promises that anonymity will be maintained in a variety of ways. (It vows that the I.P. addresses of computers logging onto the site will not be recorded, and electronic documents will be scrubbed of identifying information after they are submitted.) And it encourages leakers to use Tor—a way to send information over the Internet that is difficult to trace—and to take measures to safeguard their material before they even submit it. These are things that WikiLeaks does, too. Publication of the Palestine Papers suggests that at least someone thought that Al Jazeera was secure enough to submit to it many internal documents about a highly incendiary issue.

Has Al Jazeera taken the first step in a journalism arms race to begin acquiring mass document leaks? It would be surprising if other large news organizations are not already at work on their own encrypted WikiLeaks-style portals. The New York Times and the Guardian, for instance, have every incentive to follow in Al Jazeera’s footsteps and give people a way to submit sensitive material directly to them rather than through an intermediary, such as WikiLeaks. If they aren’t doing this, they most likely will start doing it eventually, and this raises several questions: In a future where in-house WikiLeaks portals are common to mainstream news organizations, is there a role for the original site? Will Julian Assange’s creation become a victim of its own success? And if his movement is taken over by established news organizations, how might it change?

 

[ymu]

In whose interests was this leak.

It is hardly in Israels interests.

It certainly isn't in Abbas's interests.

The only group whose interests it really could be is Hamas.

Hamaz does Wikileaks perhaps !

It's in the interests of the Palestinians, primarily. These venal fuckers have been screwing them over for way too long - Arafat sold them down the river and Abbas is trying to do worse even than that.

It may harm Israel by making their lies a little more transparent to a lot more people.

Jonathan Freedman did a decent article about this:

Palestine papers: Now we know. Israel had a peace partner

But something even more profound is at stake: these documents could discredit among Palestinians the very notion of negotiation with Israel and the two-state solution that underpins it.

And yet there might also be an unexpected boost here for the Palestinian cause. Surely international opinion will see concrete proof of how far the Palestinians have been willing to go, ready to move up to and beyond their "red lines", conceding ground that would once have been unthinkable – none more so than on Jerusalem.

In the blame game that has long attended Middle East diplomacy, this could see a shift in the Palestinians' favour.

The effect of these papers on Israel will be the reverse.

They will cause little trouble inside the country. There are no exposés of hypocrisy or double talk; on the contrary, the Israelis' statements inside the negotiating room echo what they have consistently said outside it. Livni in particular – now leader of the Israeli opposition – will be heartened that no words are recorded here to suggest she was ever a soft touch.

Still, in the eyes of world opinion that very consistency will look much less admirable. These papers show that the Israelis were intransigent in public – and intransigent in private.

What's more, the documents blow apart what has been a staple of Israeli public diplomacy: the claim that there is no Palestinian partner. That theme, a refrain of Israeli spokesmen on and off for years, is undone by transcripts which show that there is not only a Palestinian partner but one more accommodating than will surely ever appear again.

 

[dylans]

Arafat sold them down the river and Abbas is trying to do worse even than that.

How did Arafat sell them down the river? He refused the Clinton parameters at Camp David.(rightly imo) and Oslo went nowhere. He was certainly corrupt as fuck but sell out? I don't think that's fair.

 

[ymu]

How did Arafat sell them down the river? He refused the Clinton parameters at Camp David.(rightly imo) and Oslo went nowhere. He was certainly corrupt as fuck but sell out? I don't think that's fair.

Oslo made Palestine responsible for Israel's security, whilst giving it no security of its own, let alone anything but the merest semblance of independence. Arafat was in an impossible position, no doubt - but he conceded too much. Opinion in Palestine was massively split when the accords were signed, and when I was there (early noughties) one of the most common topics of conversation was whether Israel could be dealt with at the same time as Arafat, or whether Arafat had to be dealt with first. This wasn't from Hamas types - although the fact that Hamas was the only group looking to deal with Arafat no doubt helped them in the elections. The fact that Arafat's dead now hasn't solved the problem - the PA is still essentially the same. The only difference is that Hamas won the election - so the PA are a lot less popular and a lot less legitimate than Arafat ever was - but the problem of Arafat is still extant. This is the golden opportunity to tackle it, IMO.

One of the huge problems with Oslo is that it brought back a bunch of leaders-in-exile who had never lived under occupation - and mostly never had to once they came home because of the privileges of office (travel permits, money, security etc). The leadership has always been massively at odds with the population, in part because they were, and are, fucking clueless - as well as all too willing to take advantage of the personal financial opportunities available.

 

[rightone]

IMO the chance of a Palestine State are almost about 0. Israel will just keep picking away till there is nothing left of what was to be a state. The palestinians will be just like the Jews at the end of WW2. Only no one will give a dam about them or where the go too.

 

[ymu]

There's more support in Palestine for a single, secular, democratic state anyway. This is probably the point where they abandon any pretence that a two state solution is possible. It'll be a bit trickier to sell that in Israel, but the Israeli left have started to take the idea seriously in the last 10 years so it's not quite as unfamiliar a proposal there as it once was. Perhaps its time has come.

 

[rightone]

There's more support in Palestine for a single, secular, democratic state anyway. This is probably the point where they abandon any pretence that a two state solution is possible. It'll be a bit trickier to sell that in Israel, but the Israeli left have started to take the idea seriously in the last 10 years so it's not quite as unfamiliar a proposal there as it once was. Perhaps its time has come.

That is what it was to be, who on the outside will push and support it now? Obama is weak kneed and will do nothing, I see no one else with the power or instrest to make it happen. Until someone with the power to make it happen it will be just a dream.

 

[ymu]

It already is one state - noone needs to make that happen. The only question is whether the Palestinian political focus remains on achieving peace with two states, or switches to peace with equal rights for all citizens within a single state. Whether or not that is achievable is irrelevant to whether or not the shift will happen.

The two state solution is dead, IMO. Hope so anyway. One state makes more sense, and the battle for it will put much more focus on the reality of life in the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the refugee camps on the Israeli borders. A shift in focus which could help the Palestinians a great deal, given the general levels of cluelessness as to what conditions of life are actually like for Palestinians.

 

[pk]

I wish I could share the optimist sentiments. Maybe I'm a pessimistic fucker but on both sides lies so much apocalyptic hatred and irrational blind mistrust that there will be nothing conceded soon.

Maybe get 2012 out of the way first. It seems to be a popular year for self-prophecy addicts, given that the part of the world under debate is fought over by the entire planet.

You can redesign the holy city all you want, it will still stink of the blood of millions. This is what they call god. Arguing about where he died is more important than living how he lived.

God bless Darwin.

 

[TomUS]

There's more support in Palestine for a single, secular, democratic state anyway. This is probably the point where they abandon any pretence that a two state solution is possible. It'll be a bit trickier to sell that in Israel, but the Israeli left have started to take the idea seriously in the last 10 years so it's not quite as unfamiliar a proposal there as it once was. Perhaps its time has come.

I don't think it's time has come or ever will. Don't think it matters much at all if there's more Palestinian support for a single state. In Israel there isn't & they have all the power. The leaks show that no matter how generous the PA offers, Israel said sorry, not enough. If they wouldn't accept 2 states, why would they ever accept a single state where Jews would be a minority?

 

[ymu]

I don't think it's time has come or ever will. Don't think it matters much at all if there's more Palestinian support for a single state. In Israel there isn't & they have all the power. The leaks show that no matter how generous the PA offers, Israel said sorry, not enough. If they wouldn't accept 2 states, why would they ever accept a single state where Jews would be a minority?

I'm commenting on how the Palestinian line may change. I've said nothing about the chances of success.

 

[Random]

What's more, the documents blow apart what has been a staple of Israeli public diplomacy: the claim that there is no Palestinian partner. That theme, a refrain of Israeli spokesmen on and off for years, is undone by transcripts which show that there is not only a Palestinian partner but one more accommodating than will surely ever appear again.

All of the negotiators for the Quartet have surely known this for years and years. I doubt that this will change the attitude of the powerful states or the western media one inch, and the Israeli extreme nationalists who run the sate will just set a new, even higher, benchmark for what they demand of the now hopelessly compromised PA.

 

[Random]

These papers reveal which those of us who support the Palestinian national cause have known for decades. That the peace process is a transparent sham, a stalling tactic while Israel continues its annexation of Palestinian land. That Britain, the UN and the US are complicit in the ethnic annihilation of an entire people and the Palestinian leadership are shown to be the treacherous cowards they are

Abbas should be taken out and shot.

But it seems that, if there was any Palestinian anger over this leak, it was directed against al Jazeera, rather than against the PA. Maybe the west bank palestinians, at least a significant amount, now just want peace and economic growth at any price?

 

[weltweit]

Perhaps I don't fully understand what is implied, but I just cannot see a single state solution with peoples that hate each other as much as these do.

Two states, the only way, and with Gaza and the west bank connected. And a powerful armed forces for the Palestinians.. well perhaps an economy first to pay for it!

Israel is the regional superpower, it takes what it wants and there is nothing anyone can do about it, what is needed is a balance against that but I can't see where such a thing might come from. The European union on the side of the Palestinians does not seem to balance the USA on the side of Israel.

 

[ymu]

But it seems that, if there was any Palestinian anger over this leak, it was directed against al Jazeera, rather than against the PA. Maybe the west bank palestinians, at least a significant amount, now just want peace and economic growth at any price?

Bollocks. That was Fatah henchmen told to get on with it by the PA. Protesting against the PA is almost as scary as protesting against the Israeli army. And the thrust of the protests in Gaza (still controlled by Hamas) is very, very different. That's not to say that there is only one reaction on the Palestinian streets, but it's just not credible to claim that most of the (genuine) anger is directed at AJ. They are the most popular news station in Palestine by a long, long way, in a country where Hamas won the last election by a landslide because people were deeply disillusioned by the 'peace' process and the concessions forced on them for nothing in return. It's not hard to work out that these claims of the anger all being directed at Al Jazeera are just propaganda nonsense - no doubt with Israel and the US delightedly promoting that line.