MIDDLE EAST: Palestinian Authority denies validity of Al-Jazeera leaked 'peace talk' papers

Record ID: 349423

  • Title: MIDDLE EAST: Palestinian Authority denies validity of Al-Jazeera leaked 'peace talk' papers
  • Date: 25th January 2011
  • Summary: SMOKE OVERHEAD
  • Embargoed: 9th February 2011 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Jerusalem, Gaza, Israel, Palestinian Territory, Occupied, West bank
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: International Relations
  • Reuters ID: LVA5PHSWLTHRMNF6CVD139R7VZER
  • Story Text: Palestinians react to leaked documents that appear to show Palestinians offering large peace concessions to Israel.
    Palestinian negotiators secretly told Israel it could keep swathes of occupied East Jerusalem, according to leaked documents that show Palestinians offering much bigger peace concessions than previously revealed.
    The documents, obtained by the Al Jazeera television channel, could undermine the position of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose public declarations about Jerusalem are at odds with what his officials were promising in private.
    Equally sobering for the Palestinian people, who want to create a state on land Israel seized in a 1967 war, is the fact that Israel offered nothing in return for the concessions and turned down their offer, saying it did not go far enough.
    The leaked minutes of a 2008 meeting between Palestinian, U.S. and Israeli officials showed a senior Palestinian proposing that Israel annex all but one of its major Jerusalem settlements as part of a broad deal to end their decades-old conflict.
    Al Jazeera said on Sunday (January 23) it had other documents that it would publish shortly showing the Palestinians were also ready to make other massive concessions on the hugely sensitive issue of the right to return for Palestinian refugees.
    Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat went on the defensive, dismissing the documents as "a bunch of lies" during an appearance on Al Jazeera shortly after they were released.
    In a heated exchange, Erekat was confronted by critics including Abdel Bari Atwan, editor of the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper, who asked him who had authorised him or the Palestinian leadership "to give up Islamic holy sites".
    One document quoted Erekat as telling an Israeli official: "It is no secret that ...we are offering you the biggest Yerushalayim in history." He used the Hebrew word for Jerusalem.
    Ahmed Qurie, the lead Palestinian negotiator in 2008, was quoted as proposing that Israel annex all Jewish settlements in Jerusalem except Har Homa. He also said Israel could keep control of a part of the Old City of Jerusalem.
    Qurie denied the authenticity of the documents on Monday (January 24).
    "All these words have no basis of validity. Our negotiations are in public, not secret, maybe it is far away from Al-Jazeera," Qurie said.
    Nasser Ghawi is a resident of Sheikh Jarah, one of the neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem supposedly offered to Israel.
    "It is better to live in occupation instead of these signatures by Palestinian leaders to give up our neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarah," he said on Monday.
    Khalil Tafakji, Head of Mapping and Geographic Information Systems at the Arab Studies Association said that neither side has ever agreed to the map of a divided Jerusalem. Until both sides reach an agreement on the division of the city, no agreement can be reached.
    "There are two kinds of maps; maps by the Palestinian side and refused by the Israeli side; and maps by the Israeli side which was refused by the Palestinian side. To reach an agreement there should be one united map which both side agree upon, and this map has not yet been published," he said.
    Tafakji added that the Al-Jazeera leaks show internal friction between members of the Palestinian negotiating team.
    "It is not collusion but it shows friction between Palestinian figures who had relations within the negotiations, in order to destroy the relations with Jordan and internally," he said.
    Residents of Jewish West Jerusalem said that the government should have accepted the terms offered by the Palestinian Authority,
    "I was very regrettable that they didn't...come to reality because of Israel interim circumstances," Elia Avidan said.
    Hamas, the Islamist group which governs the Gaza Strip, said the documents revealed the Palestinian Authority's role in "attempting to liquidate the Palestinian cause".
    "The leaked documents which were published by Al-Jazeera regarding Ramallah's authority are dangerous documents. They revealed that we are facing an unreliable authority which is involved in attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause and the Palestinian rights especially regarding the issues of Jerusalem and the refugees. What was made public yesterday regarding Jerusalem confirms that the speeches of the Palestinian negotiators regarding Jerusalem are only slogans, and that they are involved in realising the establishment of a "Greater Jerusalem" and confirming the Jewishness of the occupying state," Hamas official Sami Abu-Zhuri told Reuters in Gaza City.
    Israel has always said it would keep the main settlement blocs around Jerusalem, but the Palestinian leadership has adopted a tougher stance in its public declarations, never letting on it was ready to make such ground.
    Abbas said as recently as last week the fate of Jerusalem was not up for discussion. However, he has also made clear that West Jerusalem was Israeli and could be the capital of the Jewish State.
    Residents of Ramallah were not surprised at the revelations, the majority of Palestinians within the West Bank have lost all faith in peace talks with Israel.
    "Since the beginning of the Oslo agreement till now, the people have not benefited from these negotiations. These negotiations have not given any results. I was not shocked," an unnamed resident told Reuters Television.
    Israel captured East Jerusalem in a 1967 war, annexing the walled Old City and a belt of surrounding West Bank land shortly after the conflict in a move that has never won international recognition. Both sides want Jerusalem as their capital.
    The 2008 transcript was one of some 1,600 documents related to the Israeli-Palestinian peace process that the Qatar-based channel said it had obtained in recent months from a variety of sources. Britain's Guardian newspaper had early access to the documents and said it had verified most of them.
    The release of the so-called 'Palestinian Papers' comes just weeks after Wikileaks starting publishing some 250,000 secret U.S. diplomatic cables.
    The Middle East peace talks are at a standstill due to a dispute over Jewish settlement construction in the occupied West Bank, with the Palestinians refusing to return to the negotiating table until Israel halts the building programmes.
    The 2008 meeting was part of talks held at the time between the Palestinians and the Israeli government of the then prime minister, Ehud Olmert. They came to an end when Olmert was forced from office over corruption allegations in 2009.
    Current Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has traditionally taken a much tough stance than his predecessor.
    There was no immediate comment from Israeli officials on the Al Jazeera leaks.
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