Palestine Papers
Encyclopedia
The Palestine Papers, representing publication of information hidden from public records and containing a cache of nearly 1,700 files, are the largest news leak
in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
. They were released in January 2011 by Al-Jazeera. Thousands of pages of diplomatic correspondence detailing the inner workings of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, documents—memos, e-mails
, map
s, minutes
from private meetings, accounts of high level exchanges, strategy papers and even power point presentations
—dating from 1999 to 2010, were released between January 23 and 26, 2011.
There are 1,684 total documents, including:
The documents were obtained by Al-Jazeera and shared in advance of publication with The Guardian
in an effort to ensure the wider availability of their content. The Guardian has authenticated the bulk of the papers independently, but has not sought or been given access to the sources of the documents. Al-Jazeera, which is publishing the papers in full on their website, has redacted
minimal parts of the papers in order to protect their sources' identities. Gershon Baskin, codirector of Israel Palestinian Center for Research, said "I'm 100 percent sure that it’s a former disgruntled employed" member of the Negotiations Support Unit headed by Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat
. Israel's Channel 10 news show also named the source of the leak as a former member of the NSU.
Akiva Eldar
, writing in Haaretz
, said that the documents are more important than those released by Wikileaks because they deal with current issues regarding permanent borders in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
, as well as the Armenian Quarter
, with the exception of Har Homa
. The Temple Mount
would be temporarily administrated by a joint body consisting of the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Egypt
, Jordan
, Saudi Arabia
, and the United States
until a permanent solution was reached. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat
confirmed that such a proposal had indeed been made, but said that it had been proposed by Israel and rejected by the Palestinians, who continued demanding all of East Jerusalem.
According to the Palestine Papers, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
proposed that East Jerusalem be divided between Israel and the Palestinian Authority according to the Clinton Parameters
.
became visibly angry when asked about the demographic composition of the future Israeli state. She was quoted as saying "Israel the state of the Jewish people -- and I would like to emphasize the meaning of “its people” is the Jewish people—with Jerusalem the united and undivided capital of Israel and of the Jewish people for 3007 years". The Palestinians team then protested her position on Jerusalem. She responded by saying "Now I have to say, before we continue, in order to continue we have to put out Jerusalem from your statement and from our place. We have enough differences, without putting another one out there". Making the discussion of the borders of Jerusalem a non-starter on the subject of borders.
Later in the discussion, Tzipi Livni told Ahmed Qurei
that "I understand the sentiments of the Palestinians when they see the settlements being built. The meaning from the Palestinian perspective is that Israel takes more land, that the Palestinian state will be impossible, the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we'll say that it is impossible, we already have the land and cannot create the state". She indicated that the position was not the policy of her current coalition but of other parties. The Palestinian negotiators protested the idea that the settlement activity had been halted as well as pointed out that the issue of settlements also included settlement expansion and activity from the private sector. Tzipi Livini responded to that by stating "When the government has [issued] the tender in the past it means that the private sector won the tender and then it has the rights on the land. They are entitled to work on the land that they purchased".
According to the documents, in a meeting with Livni in Jerusalem, Qurei proposed that Israel annex all settlements along the border except for the large cities and towns of Giv'at Ze'ev
, Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel
, and Efrat
. The documents indicate Livni rejected Qurei's demands that Israel cede these settlements. Qurei reportedly suggested to Livni that these settlements be placed under Palestinian sovereignty, but Livni told him "you know this is not realistic". According to the documents, Condoleezza Rice
similarly told Qurei that "I don't think that any Israeli leader is going to cede Ma'ale Adumim", to which Qurei replied "or any Palestinian". Rice then told him "Then you won't have a state!"
and Mahmoud Abbas held a series of peace proposal meetings during the middle of 2008 to September 16, 2008 in which the infamous "Napkin Map" incident occurred. During the first of these meeting, according to the records of the Palestine Papers, the Palestinian Authority proposed an unprecedented land swap. Offering Israel the opportunity to annex all of its settlements in East Jerusalem. Israel, however, offered nothing in return in concessions at that meeting.
During the next attempts to finalize borders, Ehud Olmert offered his own map in which Israel would annex more than 10% of the West Bank. The land in Ehud Olmert's map included the four settlement blocks of Gush Etzion
(with Efrat
), Ma'ale Adumim, Giv'at Ze'ev
, and Ariel
, in addition to Israel keeping all Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem (Har Homa
). In exchange for those lands, Ehud Olmert's proposed map offered 5.5% of Israeli land as part of the swap. The land offered consisted of lightly populated farmland, which would be divided between Gaza and the West Bank. When Mahmoud Abbas asked to keep a copy of the map for further consideration, Ehud Olmert refused to comply. Mahmoud Abbas was forced to sketch Ehud Olmert's map by hand on a napkin to have a copy for further consideration. This map was then later referred to as the Napkin Map.
The third and final meeting occurred on September 16, 2008. It was during at the tail end of Ehud Olmert's political career. At the time, Olmert was under police investigation for alleged corruption that had occurred while he was Mayor of Jerusalem, and Olmert was not planning on running again. During that meeting, Mahmoud Abbas was prepared by the NSU to clarify many questions regarding Ehud Olmert's peace plan. In which Abbas was quoted as asking questions such as "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?" as well as others about the value of the land that they would receive in such a swap in terms of value and size.
The NSU also insisted on Ehud Olmert to provide them with a copy of the map which was again denied. In the end, however, Mahmoud Abbas asked for a few days to consider the offer. A day after this meeting Ehud Olmert was resigned, Tzipi Livni stepped in as Acting Prime Minister, and Benjamin Netanyahu
was elected shortly afterward. Netanyahu refused to start negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas and a revised map he had created as well as refused to restart negotiations based on the more demanding and aggressive map created by Ehud Olmert.
, affirmed the complete authenticity of the documents in an interview. In regards to refugees, he stated that "Olmert, from day one, did not deceive Abu Mazen and told him that Israel will not allow the return of refugees and not one refugee will return to the land of Israel."
Other officials in the Israeli government asked for a limited right of return numbering between five to ten thousand, out of a total of five million refugees, who would be carefully picked by Israel and allowed to stay under "humanitarian conditions". This has been a part of several concessions asked by both sides to, in essence, circumvent and nullify the Palestinian right of return
.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
proposed settling Palestinians refugees in Argentina
and Chile
as an alternative to letting them return to former homes in Israel and the occupied territories during a meeting.
In her memoirs, Condoleeza Rice wrote that Olmert initially proposed that Israel accept 5,000 Palestinians refugees. Abbas rejected the offer, saying that "I can't tell four million Palestinians that only 5,000 of them can go home". According to the second night of the Al-Jazeera broadcast, Israelis and Palestinians eventually agreed that Israel would accept 10,000 refugees. However, Rice wrote in her memoirs that the Palestinians demanded that they be allowed to negotiate additional "returns" following the signing of a peace treaty, claiming that the right of return was a matter of individual choice that would have to extend to all people classified as Palestinian refugees.
According to the papers, when the Israelis demanded that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Saeb Erekat
said "call it what you want... it's their issue, not mine".
denied the authenticity of the Papers, saying that he had kept the Arab League
updated on all details of the negotiations with Israel
. Abbas said the Palestinians' alleged concessions on Jerusalem and refugees were Israeli positions during the talks, and that it was a "mix up".
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat
said the leaks were "a pack of lies", saying the Palestinian leadership had nothing to hide, however they posed a threat to his personal safety. He said that the information shown contained mistakes and inaccuracies and that his words were taken out of context and he had been misquoted. He resigned from his position on 12 February citing the release of the papers. Under pressure from the papers, the PLO called for a presidential and parliamentary elections in the second-half of 2011. Erekat said that the "Palestinian Authority would never give up any of our rights. If we did indeed offer Israel the Jewish and Armenian Quarters of Jerusalem, and the biggest Yerushalayim as they claim, then why did Israel not sign a final status agreement? Is it not strange that we would offer all these concessions which Israel demands, yet there is still no peace deal?"
Yasser Abed Rabbo, giving the PA's first official response, accused Al Jazeera
and the Government of Qatar
of attacking the Palestinian Authority, having a hostile attitude towards the PA since the days of former president Yasser Arafat
. Abed Rabbo was quoted saying that the Al-Jazera leaks are "a distortion of the truth". Abed Rabbo accused the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, of giving Al Jazeera the "green light" to start the campaign, and called on the Emir to "extend the climate of transparency in his own state and reveal his true relations with Israel and Iran
".
Mahmoud al-Zahar
, a senior Hamas
official in Gaza
, stated that the Palestinian Authority officials should be ashamed of themselves.
Ahmed Qurei
, former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority and chief Palestinian negotiator in the 2008 talks, said that "many parts of the documents were fabricated, as part of the incitement against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian leadership."
Nasser Gawi, a lead organizer for demonstrations in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah
, where he had been recently evicted by Israeli Jews from his home, was quoted as saying "Erekat must have become more Zionist than Zionist. He has no mandate to give up Sheikh Jarrah or an inch of Palestine."
for the creation of a Palestinian state.
Livni said that "the [peace] process did not fail and was not exhausted. It did not end, but was not allowed to ripen until an agreement was reached because of elections in Israel and this government's choice not to continue the negotiations."
News leak
A news leak is a disclosure of embargoed information in advance of its official release, or the unsanctioned release of confidential information.-Types of news leaks:...
in the history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict
Israeli-Palestinian conflict
The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the ongoing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The conflict is wide-ranging, and the term is also used in reference to the earlier phases of the same conflict, between Jewish and Zionist yishuv and the Arab population living in Palestine under Ottoman or...
. They were released in January 2011 by Al-Jazeera. Thousands of pages of diplomatic correspondence detailing the inner workings of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, documents—memos, e-mails
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
, map
Map
A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, regions, and themes....
s, minutes
Minutes
Minutes, also known as protocols, are the instant written record of a meeting or hearing. They typically describe the events of the meeting, starting with a list of attendees, a statement of the issues considered by the participants, and related responses or decisions for the issues.Minutes may be...
from private meetings, accounts of high level exchanges, strategy papers and even power point presentations
Presentation program
A presentation program is a computer software package used to display information, normally in the form of a slide show...
—dating from 1999 to 2010, were released between January 23 and 26, 2011.
There are 1,684 total documents, including:
- 275 sets of meeting minutes;
- 690 internal e-mails;
- 153 reports and studies;
- 134 sets of talking points and prep notes for meetings;
- 64 draft agreements;
- 54 maps, charts and graphs;
- and 51 “non-papers.”
The documents were obtained by Al-Jazeera and shared in advance of publication with The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
in an effort to ensure the wider availability of their content. The Guardian has authenticated the bulk of the papers independently, but has not sought or been given access to the sources of the documents. Al-Jazeera, which is publishing the papers in full on their website, has redacted
Redaction
Redaction is a form of editing in which multiple source texts are combined and subjected to minor alteration to make them into a single work. Often this is a method of collecting a series of writings on a similar theme and creating a definitive and coherent work...
minimal parts of the papers in order to protect their sources' identities. Gershon Baskin, codirector of Israel Palestinian Center for Research, said "I'm 100 percent sure that it’s a former disgruntled employed" member of the Negotiations Support Unit headed by Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat
Saeb Erekat
Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat (also Erakat; Ṣāʼib ʻUrayqāt or ʻRēqāt, born April 28, 1955 in Jordanian controlled East Jerusalem was the Palestinian chief of the PLO Steering and Monitoring Committee until 12 February 2011...
. Israel's Channel 10 news show also named the source of the leak as a former member of the NSU.
Akiva Eldar
Akiva Eldar
Akiva Eldar is an Israeli journalist and author, currently a chief political columnist and editorial writer for the liberal Israeli national daily Ha'aretz. His columns also appear regularly in the Ha'aretz-International Herald Tribune edition, as well as in the Japanese daily Mainichi Shimbun...
, writing in Haaretz
Haaretz
Haaretz is Israel's oldest daily newspaper. It was founded in 1918 and is now published in both Hebrew and English in Berliner format. The English edition is published and sold together with the International Herald Tribune. Both Hebrew and English editions can be read on the Internet...
, said that the documents are more important than those released by Wikileaks because they deal with current issues regarding permanent borders in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Jerusalem
According to one of the documents, the Palestinian Authority was prepared to concede all Israeli settlements in and around East JerusalemEast Jerusalem
East Jerusalem or Eastern Jerusalem refer to the parts of Jerusalem captured and annexed by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and then captured and annexed by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War...
, as well as the Armenian Quarter
Armenian Quarter
The Armenian Quarter is one of the four quarters of the Old City of Jerusalem. The Armenian Quarter is the smallest of the four quarters, with the smallest number of residents....
, with the exception of Har Homa
Har Homa
Har Homa is a neighborhood in southern East Jerusalem, near Beit Sahour. Built on land annexed to the Jerusalem municipality by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War, it is considered by much of the world an illegal Israeli settlement, although Israel disputes this.The neighborhood was officially...
. The Temple Mount
Temple Mount
The Temple Mount, known in Hebrew as , and in Arabic as the Haram Ash-Sharif , is one of the most important religious sites in the Old City of Jerusalem. It has been used as a religious site for thousands of years...
would be temporarily administrated by a joint body consisting of the Palestinian Authority, Israel, Egypt
Egypt
Egypt , officially the Arab Republic of Egypt, Arabic: , is a country mainly in North Africa, with the Sinai Peninsula forming a land bridge in Southwest Asia. Egypt is thus a transcontinental country, and a major power in Africa, the Mediterranean Basin, the Middle East and the Muslim world...
, Jordan
Jordan
Jordan , officially the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan , Al-Mamlaka al-Urduniyya al-Hashemiyya) is a kingdom on the East Bank of the River Jordan. The country borders Saudi Arabia to the east and south-east, Iraq to the north-east, Syria to the north and the West Bank and Israel to the west, sharing...
, Saudi Arabia
Saudi Arabia
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , commonly known in British English as Saudi Arabia and in Arabic as as-Sa‘ūdiyyah , is the largest state in Western Asia by land area, constituting the bulk of the Arabian Peninsula, and the second-largest in the Arab World...
, and the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
until a permanent solution was reached. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat
Saeb Erekat
Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat (also Erakat; Ṣāʼib ʻUrayqāt or ʻRēqāt, born April 28, 1955 in Jordanian controlled East Jerusalem was the Palestinian chief of the PLO Steering and Monitoring Committee until 12 February 2011...
confirmed that such a proposal had indeed been made, but said that it had been proposed by Israel and rejected by the Palestinians, who continued demanding all of East Jerusalem.
According to the Palestine Papers, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert
Ehud Olmert is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, as a Cabinet Minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006, and as Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003....
proposed that East Jerusalem be divided between Israel and the Palestinian Authority according to the Clinton Parameters
The Clinton Parameters
The Clinton Parameters is a term attributed to the guidelines for Permanent Status Agreement, that were offered by then President of the United States, Bill Clinton, in late 2000....
.
Borders
At a meeting in Jerusalem in November 2007, according to the documents, Tzipi LivniTzipi Livni
Tzipporah Malkah "Tzipi" Livni is an Israeli lawyer and politician. She is the current Israeli Opposition Leader and leader of Kadima, the largest party in the Knesset. Raised an ardent nationalist, Livni has become one of her nation's leading voices for the two-state solution. In Israel she has...
became visibly angry when asked about the demographic composition of the future Israeli state. She was quoted as saying "Israel the state of the Jewish people -- and I would like to emphasize the meaning of “its people” is the Jewish people—with Jerusalem the united and undivided capital of Israel and of the Jewish people for 3007 years". The Palestinians team then protested her position on Jerusalem. She responded by saying "Now I have to say, before we continue, in order to continue we have to put out Jerusalem from your statement and from our place. We have enough differences, without putting another one out there". Making the discussion of the borders of Jerusalem a non-starter on the subject of borders.
Later in the discussion, Tzipi Livni told Ahmed Qurei
Ahmed Qurei
Ahmed Ali Mohammed Qurei , also known by his Arabic Kunya Abu Alaa is a former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority...
that "I understand the sentiments of the Palestinians when they see the settlements being built. The meaning from the Palestinian perspective is that Israel takes more land, that the Palestinian state will be impossible, the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we'll say that it is impossible, we already have the land and cannot create the state". She indicated that the position was not the policy of her current coalition but of other parties. The Palestinian negotiators protested the idea that the settlement activity had been halted as well as pointed out that the issue of settlements also included settlement expansion and activity from the private sector. Tzipi Livini responded to that by stating "When the government has [issued] the tender in the past it means that the private sector won the tender and then it has the rights on the land. They are entitled to work on the land that they purchased".
According to the documents, in a meeting with Livni in Jerusalem, Qurei proposed that Israel annex all settlements along the border except for the large cities and towns of Giv'at Ze'ev
Giv'at Ze'ev
Giv'at Ze'ev is an Israeli settlement and town governed by a local council, located in the West Bank five kilometers northwest of Jerusalem. While it lies within the borders of the Matte Binyamin Regional Council, it is a separate municipal entity...
, Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel
Ariel (city)
Ariel is an Israeli settlement and a city in the West Bank. Ariel was established in 1978. Its population at the end of 2009 was 17,600, including 7,000 immigrants who came to Israel after 1990. It is the fourth largest Jewish settlement city in the West Bank., after Modi'in Illit, Beitar Illit,...
, and Efrat
Efrat
Efrat , or officially Efrata , is an Israeli settlement established in 1983 and a local council in the Judean Mountains of the West Bank. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this...
. The documents indicate Livni rejected Qurei's demands that Israel cede these settlements. Qurei reportedly suggested to Livni that these settlements be placed under Palestinian sovereignty, but Livni told him "you know this is not realistic". According to the documents, Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
similarly told Qurei that "I don't think that any Israeli leader is going to cede Ma'ale Adumim", to which Qurei replied "or any Palestinian". Rice then told him "Then you won't have a state!"
Napkin Map peace process of 2008
According to the Palestine Papers, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud OlmertEhud Olmert
Ehud Olmert is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, as a Cabinet Minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006, and as Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003....
and Mahmoud Abbas held a series of peace proposal meetings during the middle of 2008 to September 16, 2008 in which the infamous "Napkin Map" incident occurred. During the first of these meeting, according to the records of the Palestine Papers, the Palestinian Authority proposed an unprecedented land swap. Offering Israel the opportunity to annex all of its settlements in East Jerusalem. Israel, however, offered nothing in return in concessions at that meeting.
During the next attempts to finalize borders, Ehud Olmert offered his own map in which Israel would annex more than 10% of the West Bank. The land in Ehud Olmert's map included the four settlement blocks of Gush Etzion
Gush Etzion
Gush Etzion is a cluster of Israeli settlements located in the Judaean Mountains directly south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem in the West Bank, Palestinian territories. The core group includes four agricultural villages that were founded in 1940-1947 on property purchased in the 1920s and 1930s, and ...
(with Efrat
Efrat
Efrat , or officially Efrata , is an Israeli settlement established in 1983 and a local council in the Judean Mountains of the West Bank. The international community considers Israeli settlements in the West Bank illegal under international law, but the Israeli government disputes this...
), Ma'ale Adumim, Giv'at Ze'ev
Giv'at Ze'ev
Giv'at Ze'ev is an Israeli settlement and town governed by a local council, located in the West Bank five kilometers northwest of Jerusalem. While it lies within the borders of the Matte Binyamin Regional Council, it is a separate municipal entity...
, and Ariel
Ariel (city)
Ariel is an Israeli settlement and a city in the West Bank. Ariel was established in 1978. Its population at the end of 2009 was 17,600, including 7,000 immigrants who came to Israel after 1990. It is the fourth largest Jewish settlement city in the West Bank., after Modi'in Illit, Beitar Illit,...
, in addition to Israel keeping all Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem (Har Homa
Har Homa
Har Homa is a neighborhood in southern East Jerusalem, near Beit Sahour. Built on land annexed to the Jerusalem municipality by Israel after the 1967 Six-Day War, it is considered by much of the world an illegal Israeli settlement, although Israel disputes this.The neighborhood was officially...
). In exchange for those lands, Ehud Olmert's proposed map offered 5.5% of Israeli land as part of the swap. The land offered consisted of lightly populated farmland, which would be divided between Gaza and the West Bank. When Mahmoud Abbas asked to keep a copy of the map for further consideration, Ehud Olmert refused to comply. Mahmoud Abbas was forced to sketch Ehud Olmert's map by hand on a napkin to have a copy for further consideration. This map was then later referred to as the Napkin Map.
The third and final meeting occurred on September 16, 2008. It was during at the tail end of Ehud Olmert's political career. At the time, Olmert was under police investigation for alleged corruption that had occurred while he was Mayor of Jerusalem, and Olmert was not planning on running again. During that meeting, Mahmoud Abbas was prepared by the NSU to clarify many questions regarding Ehud Olmert's peace plan. In which Abbas was quoted as asking questions such as "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?" as well as others about the value of the land that they would receive in such a swap in terms of value and size.
The NSU also insisted on Ehud Olmert to provide them with a copy of the map which was again denied. In the end, however, Mahmoud Abbas asked for a few days to consider the offer. A day after this meeting Ehud Olmert was resigned, Tzipi Livni stepped in as Acting Prime Minister, and Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin Netanyahu
Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu is the current Prime Minister of Israel. He serves also as the Chairman of the Likud Party, as a Knesset member, as the Health Minister of Israel, as the Pensioner Affairs Minister of Israel and as the Economic Strategy Minister of Israel.Netanyahu is the first and, to...
was elected shortly afterward. Netanyahu refused to start negotiations with Mahmoud Abbas and a revised map he had created as well as refused to restart negotiations based on the more demanding and aggressive map created by Ehud Olmert.
Refugees
Yankie Galenty, a media adviser for Ehud OlmertEhud Olmert
Ehud Olmert is an Israeli politician and lawyer. He served as Prime Minister of Israel from 2006 to 2009, as a Cabinet Minister from 1988 to 1992 and from 2003 to 2006, and as Mayor of Jerusalem from 1993 to 2003....
, affirmed the complete authenticity of the documents in an interview. In regards to refugees, he stated that "Olmert, from day one, did not deceive Abu Mazen and told him that Israel will not allow the return of refugees and not one refugee will return to the land of Israel."
Other officials in the Israeli government asked for a limited right of return numbering between five to ten thousand, out of a total of five million refugees, who would be carefully picked by Israel and allowed to stay under "humanitarian conditions". This has been a part of several concessions asked by both sides to, in essence, circumvent and nullify the Palestinian right of return
Palestinian right of return
The Palestinian right of return is a political position or principle asserting that Palestinian refugees, both first-generation refugees and their descendants, have a right to return, and a right to the property they or their forebears left or which they were forced to leave in what is now Israel...
.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice
Condoleezza Rice is an American political scientist and diplomat. She served as the 66th United States Secretary of State, and was the second person to hold that office in the administration of President George W. Bush...
proposed settling Palestinians refugees in Argentina
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
and Chile
Chile
Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...
as an alternative to letting them return to former homes in Israel and the occupied territories during a meeting.
In her memoirs, Condoleeza Rice wrote that Olmert initially proposed that Israel accept 5,000 Palestinians refugees. Abbas rejected the offer, saying that "I can't tell four million Palestinians that only 5,000 of them can go home". According to the second night of the Al-Jazeera broadcast, Israelis and Palestinians eventually agreed that Israel would accept 10,000 refugees. However, Rice wrote in her memoirs that the Palestinians demanded that they be allowed to negotiate additional "returns" following the signing of a peace treaty, claiming that the right of return was a matter of individual choice that would have to extend to all people classified as Palestinian refugees.
According to the papers, when the Israelis demanded that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state, Saeb Erekat
Saeb Erekat
Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat (also Erakat; Ṣāʼib ʻUrayqāt or ʻRēqāt, born April 28, 1955 in Jordanian controlled East Jerusalem was the Palestinian chief of the PLO Steering and Monitoring Committee until 12 February 2011...
said "call it what you want... it's their issue, not mine".
Palestinian Authority
Palestinian President Mahmoud AbbasMahmoud Abbas
Mahmoud Abbas , also known by the kunya Abu Mazen , has been the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation since 11 November 2004 and became President of the Palestinian National Authority on 15 January 2005 on the Fatah ticket.Elected to serve until 9 January 2009, he unilaterally...
denied the authenticity of the Papers, saying that he had kept the Arab League
Arab League
The Arab League , officially called the League of Arab States , is a regional organisation of Arab states in North and Northeast Africa, and Southwest Asia . It was formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Egypt, Iraq, Transjordan , Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria. Yemen joined as a...
updated on all details of the negotiations with Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
. Abbas said the Palestinians' alleged concessions on Jerusalem and refugees were Israeli positions during the talks, and that it was a "mix up".
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat
Saeb Erekat
Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat (also Erakat; Ṣāʼib ʻUrayqāt or ʻRēqāt, born April 28, 1955 in Jordanian controlled East Jerusalem was the Palestinian chief of the PLO Steering and Monitoring Committee until 12 February 2011...
said the leaks were "a pack of lies", saying the Palestinian leadership had nothing to hide, however they posed a threat to his personal safety. He said that the information shown contained mistakes and inaccuracies and that his words were taken out of context and he had been misquoted. He resigned from his position on 12 February citing the release of the papers. Under pressure from the papers, the PLO called for a presidential and parliamentary elections in the second-half of 2011. Erekat said that the "Palestinian Authority would never give up any of our rights. If we did indeed offer Israel the Jewish and Armenian Quarters of Jerusalem, and the biggest Yerushalayim as they claim, then why did Israel not sign a final status agreement? Is it not strange that we would offer all these concessions which Israel demands, yet there is still no peace deal?"
Yasser Abed Rabbo, giving the PA's first official response, accused Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera is an independent broadcaster owned by the state of Qatar through the Qatar Media Corporation and headquartered in Doha, Qatar...
and the Government of Qatar
Qatar
Qatar , also known as the State of Qatar or locally Dawlat Qaṭar, is a sovereign Arab state, located in the Middle East, occupying the small Qatar Peninsula on the northeasterly coast of the much larger Arabian Peninsula. Its sole land border is with Saudi Arabia to the south, with the rest of its...
of attacking the Palestinian Authority, having a hostile attitude towards the PA since the days of former president Yasser Arafat
Yasser Arafat
Mohammed Yasser Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader and a Laureate of the Nobel Prize. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority...
. Abed Rabbo was quoted saying that the Al-Jazera leaks are "a distortion of the truth". Abed Rabbo accused the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, of giving Al Jazeera the "green light" to start the campaign, and called on the Emir to "extend the climate of transparency in his own state and reveal his true relations with Israel and Iran
Iran
Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran , is a country in Southern and Western Asia. The name "Iran" has been in use natively since the Sassanian era and came into use internationally in 1935, before which the country was known to the Western world as Persia...
".
Mahmoud al-Zahar
Mahmoud al-Zahar
Mahmoud al-Zahar is a co-founder of Hamas and a member of the Hamas leadership in the Gaza Strip. Since the formation of the Hamas/"Change and Reform" government in the Palestinian National Authority in March 2006, al-Zahar has served as foreign minister in the government of prime minister Ismail...
, a senior Hamas
Hamas
Hamas is the Palestinian Sunni Islamic or Islamist political party that governs the Gaza Strip. Hamas also has a military wing, the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades...
official in Gaza
Gaza
Gaza , also referred to as Gaza City, is a Palestinian city in the Gaza Strip, with a population of about 450,000, making it the largest city in the Palestinian territories.Inhabited since at least the 15th century BC,...
, stated that the Palestinian Authority officials should be ashamed of themselves.
Ahmed Qurei
Ahmed Qurei
Ahmed Ali Mohammed Qurei , also known by his Arabic Kunya Abu Alaa is a former prime minister of the Palestinian Authority...
, former Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority and chief Palestinian negotiator in the 2008 talks, said that "many parts of the documents were fabricated, as part of the incitement against the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian leadership."
Nasser Gawi, a lead organizer for demonstrations in the Jerusalem neighborhood of Sheikh Jarrah
Sheikh Jarrah
Sheikh Jarrah is a predominantly Palestinian neighborhood in East Jerusalem on the road to Mount Scopus.-History:Sheikh Jarrah was established on the slopes of Mount Scopus, taking its name from the tomb of Sheikh Jarrah. The tomb, dated to 1201, is the burial place of Husam al-Din al-Jarrahi, an...
, where he had been recently evicted by Israeli Jews from his home, was quoted as saying "Erekat must have become more Zionist than Zionist. He has no mandate to give up Sheikh Jarrah or an inch of Palestine."
Israel
Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said that "even the most left-wing government of Olmert and Livni did not manage to reach a peace agreement, despite the many concessions." He also promoted his plan for peace, which would allocate 45% to 50% of the West BankWest Bank
The West Bank ) of the Jordan River is the landlocked geographical eastern part of the Palestinian territories located in Western Asia. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel. To the east, across the Jordan River, lies the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan...
for the creation of a Palestinian state.
Livni said that "the [peace] process did not fail and was not exhausted. It did not end, but was not allowed to ripen until an agreement was reached because of elections in Israel and this government's choice not to continue the negotiations."
Source of the leaks
Ziyad Clot, a lawyer of Palestinian descent involved in 2008 Annapolis negotiations exposed himself as the source of the leaks.See also
- United States diplomatic cables leakUnited States diplomatic cables leakThe United States diplomatic cables leak, widely known as Cablegate, began in February 2010 when WikiLeaks—a non-profit organization that publishes submissions from anonymous whistleblowers—began releasing classified cables that had been sent to the U.S. State Department by 274 of its consulates,...
also known as Cablegate - Iraq War documents leakIraq War documents leakThe Iraq War documents leak is the unsanctioned disclosure of a collection of 391,832 United States Army field reports, also called the Iraq War Logs, of the Iraq War from 2004 to 2009 to several international media organizations and published on the Internet by WikiLeaks on 2010. The files record...
also known as the Iraqi War Logs - Afghan War documents leak
External links
- Search the Palestine Papers on Al-Jazeera English's Transparency Unit
- The Palestine Papers by Al-Jazeera English
- The Palestine Papers by The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- The Palestine Papers by The Real News
- Rashid KhalidiRashid KhalidiRashid Ismail Khalidi , born 1948, a Palestinian-American historian of the Middle East, is the Edward Said Professor of Modern Arab Studies at Columbia University, and director of the Middle East Institute of Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs.-Family, education and...
: Leaked "Palestine Papers" Underscore Weakness of Palestinian Authority - video report by Democracy Now!Democracy Now!Democracy Now! and its staff have received several journalism awards, including the Gracie Award from American Women in Radio & Television; the George Polk Award for its 1998 radio documentary Drilling and Killing: Chevron and Nigeria's Oil Dictatorship, on the Chevron Corporation and the deaths of... - Palestinian negotiators say leaked papers real by Abbas Al Lawati of Gulf NewsGulf NewsGulf News is a daily English language newspaper published from Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates with a December 2009 BPA audited circulation of over 117,036 qualified copies...