Wikileaks: Palestinian negotiators tried to make big concessions,Israel still refused

[~Spectre]

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

The classified documents show Palestinians willing to go to extreme lengths and Israel holding a firm line on any peace deal






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Jonathan Freedland (http://www.guardian.co.uk/profile/jonathanfreedland)
guardian.co.uk (http://www.guardian.co.uk/), Sunday 23 January 2011 20.00 GMT
Article history (http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-israel-peace-partner#history-link-box)


Who will be most damaged by this extraordinary glimpse into the reality of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process? Perhaps the first casualty will be Palestinian national pride, their collective sense of dignity in adversity badly wounded by the papers revealed today.
Many on the Palestinian streets will recoil to read not just the concessions offered by their representatives – starting with the yielding of those parts of East Jerusalem settled by Israeli Jews – but the language in which those concessions were made.
To hear their chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, tell the Israelis that the Palestinians are ready to concede "the biggest Yerushalayim in Jewish history" – even using the Hebrew word for the city – will strike many as an act of humiliation.
Referring to Ariel Sharon as a "friend" will offend those Palestinians who still revile the former prime minister as the "Butcher of Beirut" for his role in the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
Telling Tzipi Livni, Israel (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/israel)'s then foreign minister, on the eve of national elections "I would vote for you" will strike many Palestinians as grovelling of a shameful kind.
It is this tone which will stick in the throat just as much as the substantive concessions on land or, as the Guardian will reveal in coming days, the intimate level of secret co-operation with Israeli security forces or readiness of Palestinian negotiators to give way on the highly charged question of the right of return for Palestinian refugees.
Of course it should be said that this cache of papers is not exhaustive and may have been leaked selectively; other documents might provide a rather different impression. Nevertheless, these texts will do enormous damage to the standing of the Palestinian Authority and to the Fatah party that leads it. Erekat himself may never recover his credibility.
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 (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/middleeast) 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.
Where does this leave the peace process itself? The pessimistic view is that what little life remained in it has now been punched out. On the Palestinian side these revelations are bound to strengthen Hamas, who have long rejected Fatah's strategy of negotiation, arguing that armed resistance is the only way to secure Palestinian statehood. Hamas will now be able to claim that diplomacy not only fails to bring results, it brings national humiliation.
But the despair will not be confined to the Palestinians. Others may well conclude that if a two-state solution is not possible even under these circumstances – when the Palestinians go as far as they can but still fail, in Livni's words, to "meet our demands" – then it can never be achieved. This is the view that sees Israelis and Palestinians as two acrobats who, even when they bend over backwards, just cannot touch: the Palestinian maximum always falls short of the Israeli minimum.
The optimistic view will hope these papers act as a wake-up call, jolting the US – exposed here as far from the even-handed, honest broker it claims to be – into pressing reset on its Middle East effort, beginning with a determination to exert proper pressure on Israel, pushing it to budge.
It goes without saying that in any wager between optimists and pessimists in the Middle East, the smart money is usually on the latter.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jan/23/palestine-papers-israel-peace-partner

[freepalestine]

The Palestine Papers
Introducing The Palestine Papers
Al Jazeera has obtained more than 1,600 internal documents from a decade of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations.


Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 23 Jan 2011 15:32 GMT
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Over the last several months, Al Jazeera has been given unhindered access to the largest-ever leak of confidential documents related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are nearly 1,700 files, thousands of pages of diplomatic correspondence detailing the inner workings of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. These documents – memos, e-mails, maps, minutes from private meetings, accounts of high level exchanges, strategy papers and even power point presentations – date from 1999 to 2010.

The material is voluminous and detailed; it provides an unprecedented look inside the continuing negotiations involving high-level American, Israeli, and Palestinian Authority officials.

Al Jazeera will release the documents between January 23-26th, 2011. They will reveal new details about:

the Palestinian Authority’s willingness to concede illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, and to be “creative” about the status of the Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount;
the compromises the Palestinian Authority was prepared to make on refugees and the right of return;
details of the PA’s security cooperation with Israel;
and private exchanges between Palestinian and American negotiators in late 2009, when the Goldstone Report was being discussed at the United Nations.
Because of the sensitive nature of these documents, Al Jazeera will not reveal the source(s) or detail how they came into our possession. We have taken great care over an extended period of time to assure ourselves of their authenticity.

We believe this material will prove to be of inestimable value to journalists, scholars, historians, policymakers and the general public.

We know that some of what is presented here will prove controversial, but it is our intention to inform, not harm, to spark debate and reflection – not dampen it. Our readers and viewers will note that we have provided a comments section in which to express opinions. In keeping with our editorial policies, we reserve the right to excise comments that we deem inappropriate, but all civil voices will be heard, all opinions respected.

We present these papers as a service to our viewers and readers as a reflection of our fundamental belief – that public debate and public policies grow, flourish and endure when given air and light.

http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/2011/01/201112214310263628.html

[freepalestine]

The Palestine Papers
"The biggest Yerushalayim"


PA offered to concede almost all of East Jerusalem, an historic concession for which Israel offered nothing in return.
Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 23 Jan 2011 19:58 GMT

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Al Jazeera's Mike Hanna reports from Jerusalem on plans to annex illegal Israeli settlements
Ramat Shlomo, Israel – For all the international controversy over construction at this quiet settlement in north Jerusalem, there is little of it in evidence.







Related Documents

Meeting Minutes: Trilateral - United States, Israel and Palestine

Meeting Minutes: Borders with Erekat, Qurei and Livni

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.

“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.”

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).

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.

"We proposed that Israel annexes all settlements"

The unprecedented offer by the PA came in a June 15 trilateral meeting in Jerusalem, 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.

Qurei: 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.

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.)

An historic concession


Related

The "napkin map" revealed

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.

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.

Settlements in East Jerusalem are illegal under international law, but the Israelis have long treated them as suburbs.

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.

Israelis are deeply divided on East Jerusalem settlements – polls conducted last year by Yedioth Ahronoth and Ha’aretz 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.

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.

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 wasn’t allowed to discuss the subject.

Dekel: I do not have permission to discuss Jerusalem without knowing what arrangements will be in Jerusalem.

Al-Abed: And Abu Ala said we cannot discuss Ma’ale Adumim.

Dekel: So let’s eat lunch together, and let them [leaders] decide what to do.

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.

Erekat: 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?

An impossible choice?

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".

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.


Palestinian laborers work on a housing development in the illegal settlement of Ma'ale Adumim.
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.

"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.

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.

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:

Qurei: Perhaps Ma’ale Adumim will remain under Palestinian sovereignty, and it could be a model for cooperation and coexistence.

Livni: The matter is not simply giving a passport to settlers.

The Israeli foreign minister refused to entertain the idea. “You know this is not realistic,” she told Qurei in May.

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.

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.

Rice: I don’t think that any Israeli leader is going to cede Ma’ale Adumim.

Qurei: Or any Palestinian leader.

Rice: Then you won’t have a state!

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.




http://english.aljazeera.net/palestinepapers/2011/01/2011122112512844113.html

[freepalestine]

The Palestine Papers
Erekat's solution for the Haram
The PA's chief negotiator suggested unprecedented compromises on the division of Jerusalem and its holy sites.
Clayton Swisher Last Modified: 23 Jan 2011 14:39 GMT



Erekat proposed a "creative" solution for the Haram al-Sharif in a private meeting with US envoy George Mitchell.
Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator of the Palestinian Authority (PA), had suggested unprecedented compromises on the division of Jerusalem and its holy sites, the Palestine Papers obtained by Al Jazeera show.

Minutes of negotiations at the US State Department in Washington DC indicate that Erekat was willing to concede control over the Haram al-Sharif, or Temple Mount, to the oversight of an international committee.

Related

Daud Abdullah: Shocking revelations on Jerusalem

"The chief Palestinian negotiator appeared totally disconnected from his own people, as well as his wider Arab and Muslim constituency, when he made this 'creative' overture about Old City and the Haram."

Watch: Creative solutions

The highly controversial issue of who controls the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), home of the Al Aqsa mosque - Islam’s third holiest site - has been a major sticking point during decades of negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinians.

Israel calls the Haram al-Sharif the “Temple Mount” because Jews believe it was the site of the Second Temple destroyed during Roman times. In recent years, Jewish settler groups – some with close ties to the Israeli government – have advocated building a “Third Temple", which would necessitate the destruction of the existing Muslim holy sites.

The site has often been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On October 8, 1990, Israeli forces shot dead 21 Palestinian civilians at the Haram al-Sharif. The Palestinians, whom Israel said were throwing stones at Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall below the Haram, were protesting plans by a settler group called the Temple Mount Faithful to lay a cornerstone for the Third Temple.

Palestinians have accused Israel of trying to undermine the foundations of the al-Aqsa mosque through what Israel describes as archaeological excavations. In September 1996, Israel opened what it called a tourist tunnel along the foundations of the Haram, touching off violence that left dozens of people dead – the vast majority of them Palestinians.

In September 2000, Ariel Sharon, the then-Israeli opposition leader, visited the Haram al-Sharif accompanied by hundreds of armed Israeli police. Palestinian protests at what was seen as a provocation, and Israel’s armed response to them, marked the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada.

"There are creative ways"

In a meeting on October 21, 2009 with George Mitchell, the US Middle East envoy, David Hale, Mitchell’s deputy, and Jonathan Schwartz, the then-US State Department legal adviser, Erekat told the Americans that they would need a “creative” solution for the division of the Old City.

Erekat: “It’s solved. You have the Clinton Parameters formula. For the Old City sovereignty for Palestine, except the Jewish quarter and part of the Armenian quarter … the Haram can be left to be discussed - there are creative ways, having a body or a committee, having undertakings for example not to dig [excavations under the Al Aqsa mosque]. The only thing I cannot do is convert to Zionism.”

Schwartz: To confirm to Sen. Mitchell, [this is] your private idea …

Erekat: This conversation is in my private capacity.

Schwartz: We’ve heard the idea from others. So you’re not the first to raise it.

Erekat: Others are not the chief negotiator of the PLO.

This was a surprising statement from Erekat: The status of the Haram al-Sharif has rarely been discussed during negotiations.

No different than Jericho?


In a November 2010 interview with Al Jazeera, Saeb Erekat says all occupied territory is the same.

The 2000 Camp David talks marked the first time leaders from both sides bargained directly over the status of occupied East Jerusalem and its holy sites.

International law and the 1967 borders clearly show that the Haram al-Sharif is within the occupied Palestinian territories. Thus the discussion– between Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian president Yasser Arafat – proved highly controversial. Many participants in the talks say that their failure to resolve the status of the Old City's holy sites proved the ultimate deal-killer.

Arafat's stance

Bill Clinton, the then-US president advanced various proposals for dividing or sharing sovereignty, but Arafat proudly defended the unwillingness of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) to compromise on the Haram al-Sharif’s sovereignty. It was a principled position that earned him scorn among Israelis and Americans, but universal support at home and throughout the broader Islamic world.

The status of the Haram al-Sharif was also seldom raised in more than 280 bilateral meetings during the Annapolis process (November 2007-December 2008). The main reason for this was domestic Israeli politics: Then-prime minister Ehud Olmert’s coalition partners demanded that the status of Jerusalem’s holy sites remained unresolved; the religious right-wing Shas party threatened to leave the government if the issue was even discussed.

Thus the Israeli delegation was not allowed to speak about it, as reiterated to the PA in a July 2, 2008 meeting by Udi Dekel, Olmert’s top negotiator:

“Why does your side keep mentioning Jerusalem in every meeting - isn’t there an understanding on this between the leaders?” Dekel asked Erekat.

The Israelis, in other words, freely admitted that they could not entertain any bargain on Jerusalem.

Carving up the Old City


Yet the PA went ahead and presented its ideas - regardless of the tactical consequences.

During a May 29, 2008 post-Annapolis meeting in Jerusalem, Dekel told PA officials that the parameters of the peace talks had shifted.

“Since 2000, something happened in those 8 years so we are not at the same starting point. You started a terror war on us and we created facts on the ground. This is the reality that we live in today, so we can’t go back to Camp David. Circumstances changed considerably since then. Facts have changed. So we can’t freeze time and consider that we are in 2000 reality. The Middle East has changed,” Dekel told Samih al-Abid, a PLO map expert.

A month later, on June 30, 2008, in a meeting with Tzipi Livni, the then-foreign minister, Ahmed Qurei, the former PA prime minister, tried to persuade the Israelis to roll back their stance on the starting point of the negotiations.

Qurei: “Jerusalem is part of the territory occupied in 67. We can discuss and agree on many issues relating to Jerusalem: religious places, infrastructure, municipal function, economic issues, security, settlements. However, the municipal borders for us are 67. This is the basis, and this is where we can start.

[Silence]

Livni: Houston, we have a problem.

Qurei: Silence is agreement …

Erekat: It is no secret that on our map we proposed we are offering you the biggest Yerushalayim in history. But we must talk about the concept of Al-Quds [Jerusalem].

Livni: Do you have a concept?

Erekat: Yes. We have a detailed concept – but we will only discuss with a partner. And it’s doable.

Livni: No, I can’t.

By the end of the Annapolis negotiations, the PA appeared to believe that some internationalising of the Haram al-Sharif would be required. In an offer conveyed orally to [Palestinian President Mahmoud] Abbas on August 31, 2008, Olmert suggested that the US, along with Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia, should take membership on a committee to determine the fate of the Haram al-Sharif.

The committee would not have had the ability to force either Israel or the weaker Palestinian party to accept an agreement.

Erekat seemed willing to claim that such an arrangement would be acceptable, even though the US has no historic standing on the issue of holy sites and considers itself Israel’s closest ally. The other Arab participants would each have brought their own baggage, in particular the Saudis, who viewed resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict as a core concern.

At the end of the Annapolis negotiations, on December 2, 2008 - just weeks before the Gaza war - Erekat said to David Welch, the US Assistant Secretary of State, that: “Saudi’s main concern is Jerusalem - not swaps and neighbourhoods”.

“To them Jerusalem is the Haram,” Erekat added.
http://english.aljazeera.net/palesti...545946119.html

[freepalestine]

The Palestine Papers
The "napkin map" revealed
The Palestine Papers include a rendering of the Israeli land swap map presented in mid-2008 to Mahmoud Abbas.


Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 23 Jan 2011 14:39 GMT
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The Palestinian Authority proposed an unprecedented land swap to the Israeli government, offering to annex virtually all of the illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.


Not only did the Israeli government offer no concessions in return, but – as The Palestine Papers now reveal – it responded with an even more aggressive land swap: Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert wanted to annex more than 10% of the West Bank (including the major settlements in Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel and elsewhere), in exchange for sparsely-populated farmland along the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

The Israeli offer is documented in a Palestinian rendition of what’s colloquially called “the napkin map,” a rendering of which is revealed for the first time in The Palestine Papers.

Olmert met in mid-2008 with Mahmoud Abbas and showed him a map of the proposed swaps. Abbas was not allowed to keep a copy of the map, and so the 73-year-old Palestinian president had to sketch a copy by hand on a napkin.

Saeb Erekat, the chief Palestinian negotiator, described the Olmert-Abbas meeting in an interview with Al Jazeera earlier this year.

He went with the President Peres and me and… actually sat outside discussing all issues. And then the president came out of that meeting 20 or 30 minutes, and we sat with the two presidents. And the offer wasn’t made at one meeting. This was three or four meetings actually, one showed him a map, Abu Mazen had given him a map, he showed him a map and Abu Mazen had to draw with his own hands.

The Palestine Papers include two renditions of the napkin map, one showing Israel’s proposed swaps in the Jerusalem area, another showing all of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. Israel would keep all of its major West Bank settlements – Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, Kedumim and others – none of which were included in the Palestinian offers.

Olmert also proposed a “safe passage” – a territorial link between the West Bank and Gaza – that would be under Palestinian control yet remain under Israeli sovereignty. A special road would connect Bethlehem with Ramallah, bypassing East Jerusalem.

Olmert also proposed delaying any decision on the Haram al-Sharif: the issue would be negotiated between Israel and Palestine, and those talks would be overseen by a committee of the United States, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt.


The two leaders met again on September 16, 2008. A set of talking points prepared by the NSU included a great deal of confusion about Olmert's offer; the memo urged Abbas to ask for a copy of the map, and raised a number of questions about the territory swaps.

How do you see it addressing our interests, especially as Ariel, Maale Adumim, Givat Zeev, Har Homa and Efrat clearly prejudice contiguity, water aquifers, and the viability of Palestine?

How do you see the specific areas that you suggested to swap from Israel to Palestine addressing our interest of swapping territory equal in size and value?

The NSU memo did not explicitly endorse or reject the Olmert offer; it did warn that continued settlement growth (particularly in East Jerusalem) would make any agreement "much more difficult."



http://english.aljazeera.net/palesti...239940577.html