'Palestine Papers' stir fury over bowing to Israel

Hamas slams PA's secret 'cooperation with the occupation' on Jerusalem as Israel denies informing Abbas of Gaza war.

Middle East Online

By Hazel Ward - JERUSALEM

'Attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause' Palestinian offers of major concessions to Israel on Jerusalem and refugees laid out in documents leaked to the press, on Monday provoked an angry and defensive reaction from the Ramallah leadership. Details of the proposals, laid out during peace talks in 2008, emerged late on Sunday when Al-Jazeera began publishing the first of 1,600 confidential documents known as the "Palestine Papers." The Arab satellite news channel said the leaks cover more than 10 years of secret talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The documents, which were shared with British daily the Guardian, stirred surprise and anger among Palestinian officials, with chief negotiator Saeb Erakat dismissing them as "full of distortions." "We don't have anything to hide," Erakat said by telephone from Cairo on Monday, insisting the revelations had been "taken out of context and contain lies." "Al-Jazeera's information is full of distortions and fraud," he said. Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who is currently in the Egyptian capital for talks with senior officials, insisted that the Palestinian Authority (PA) had shared every development in the peace process with the Arab world's leadership. "With everything we have done -- in terms of activities with the Israelis or the Americans -- we have given the Arabs details," Abbas said in remarks published by Palestinian news agency Wafa. "I don't know where Al-Jazeera got these secret things from, and there is nothing hidden from the Arab brothers," he added, adding that Arab nations were kept up to date through the 22-member Arab League based in Cairo. The leaks prompted a furious response from Gaza's Hamas rulers, who have long decried peace talks with Israel. Its spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri said they showed the PA's "ugly face" and "level of its cooperation with the occupation." They show "the level of the Fatah Authority's involvement in attempts to liquidate the Palestinian cause, particularly on the issue of Jerusalem and refugees, and its involvement against the resistance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip." Hailed by Al Jazeera as "the most important leak in the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict," the files are purportedly the official minutes documented by Palestinian negotiators after meeting with the Israelis. According to the papers, the Palestinians offered to let Israel keep a raft of Jewish settlement neighbourhoods in annexed east Jerusalem as well as the Old City's Jewish Quarter and part of the Armenian Quarter. But Israel rejected the offer, saying it did not meet their demands, the papers show. Al-Jazeera said the concessions were made in June 2008 at talks between then secretary of state Condoleezza Rice and Israel's then foreign minister Tzipi Livni, former Palestinian premier Ahmad Qorei, and Erakat. "We proposed that Israel annexes all settlements in Jerusalem except Jabal Abu Ghneim (Har Homa)," the documents quote Qorei as saying. "This is the first time in history that we make such a proposition; we refused to do so in Camp David," he added, referring to the US-hosted 2000 Camp David peace talks attended by late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. But "the Israeli side refused to even place Jerusalem on the agenda, let alone offer the PA concessions in return for its historic offer," it said. Erakat was also said to have offered to accept the return of only 100,000 out of the Palestinians who fled at the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948 and their descendants, now numbering almost five million. The documents likewise show how PA leaders had been "privately tipped off" before Israel's 2008-2009 war against the Gaza Strip ruled by the Islamist movement Hamas, the paper said. But Amos Gilad, the senior Israeli defence official said to have informed Abbas of the plan, on Monday denied having given any such warning. "This is an example of inaccuracy. No concrete warning concerning an offensive was given to the Palestinian Authority," Gilad, director of political-military affairs at the Defence Ministry, told Israeli public radio. "I didn't say anything to president Abbas that I hadn't said to the entire world: that we could not tolerate the resumption of rocket fire and other terrorist attacks against our territory," said Gilad. At the time of the invasion, Gilad served as a co-coordinator on Israeli activities in the Palestinian territories. "You could have just deduced that Israel would act. But no concrete information was given," he added. The report comes as world powers seek ways to haul Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table after direct peace talks broke down last September in a dispute over Jewish settlements and occupied Jerusalem. Washington said it was reviewing the documents, with State Department spokesman Philip Crowley saying: "We cannot vouch for their veracity" in a Twitter post. The remaining papers are to be revealed by Al-Jazeera and the Guardian in daily stages. They reveal "the unyielding confidence of Israeli negotiators," according to the Guardian. The leaked documents were "drawn up by PA officials and lawyers working for the British-funded PLO negotiations support unit and include extensive verbatim transcripts of private meetings," it said. Many of them had been "independently authenticated by the Guardian and corroborated by former participants in the talks and intelligence and diplomatic sources."