Secret papers reveal slow death of Middle East peace process

[irishspirit]

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

"The biggest leak of confidential documents in the history of the Middle East conflict (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestine-papers) has revealed that Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to accept Israel (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israel)'s annexation of all but one of the settlements built illegally in occupied East Jerusalem (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/east-jerusalem-land-palestine-papers).



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 obtained by al-Jazeera TV (http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/) and shared exclusively with the Guardian (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/story-behind-leaked-palestine-papers). The papers provide an extraordinary and vivid insight into the disintegration of the 20-year peace process (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/timeline-middle-east-peace-talks), 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 confidential concessions offered by Palestinian negotiators (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-power-weakness-negotiations), (see below) 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 Palestinian territories (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestinian-territories).


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-expose-peace-concession"

IRISH: This is no surprise and shows just how bad Israel wants war and bloodshed. I would have been shocked by this at one stage, now however, not so much! It seems that the Palestinians have bent over backwards for these people, and what do they get? Gaza Destroyed, Countless lives lost (I doubt that we will ever know the true number of lives lost), no clean running water, starvation, no health car, Doctors killed, Medics killed, schools lost, Economy shattered ans an International community turning a blind eye because the do not want to upset Israel.

[irishspirit]

The overwhelming impression that emerges from the confidential records of a decade of Middle East (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middleeast) peace talks is of the weakness and desperation of Palestinian leaders, the unyielding correctness of Israeli negotiators and the often contemptuous attitude towards the Palestinian side shown by US politicians and officials.

It is a picture that graphically illustrates the gradual breakdown of a process now widely believed to have reached a dead end. The documents reveal Palestinian Authority leaders often tipping over into making ingratiating appeals to their Israeli counterparts, as well as US leaders. "I would vote for you (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/palestine-papers-documents/2826)," the then senior Palestinian negotiator, Ahmed Qureia (also known as Abu Ala), told Tzipi Livni (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/tzipi-livni), Israel (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israel)'s foreign minister, during talks at the King David hotel in Jerusalem in June 2008, as she was preparing for elections in her Kadima party. Given the choice, Livni shot back, "you don't have much of a dilemma."
Qureia's comment echoed earlier private remarks by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), to Ariel Sharon in a June 2005 meeting at the then Israeli prime minister's residence which would have caused outrage if they had been made known at the time.
Having listened to Sharon berate him for failing to crack down on the "terrorist infrastructure" of Hamas and Islamic jihad, Abbas was recorded as noting "with pleasure the fact that Sharon considered him a friend, and the fact that he too considered Sharon a friend", adding that "every bullet that is aimed in the direction of Israel is a bullet aimed at the Palestinians as well". In March 2008, the documents show that Qureia greeted the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, with the words: "You bring back life to the region when you come."


But as the 2007-08 Annapolis negotiations led nowhere and the government of Binyamin Netanyahu successfully resisted US pressure to halt settlement building in the occupied territories during 2009-10, Palestinian negotiators are shown adopting an increasingly injured and despairing tone with US officials, as they seek to demonstrate the scale of concessions they have made to no avail.
In an emotional – and apparently humiliating – outburst to Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Washington in October 2009, the senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat complained that the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership wasn't even being offered a "figleaf".


He said: "Nineteen years of promises and you haven't made up your minds what you want to do with us ... We delivered on our road map obligations. Even Yuval Diskin [director of Israel's internal security service, Shabak] raises his hat on security. But no, they can't even give a six-month freeze to give me a figleaf."
All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was "PR, quick news, and we're cost free", ending up with the appeal: "What good am I if I'm the joke of my wife, if I'm so weak?"


http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-power-weakness-negotiations