Amy Goodman: Newly released documents show the Palestinian negotiators secretly agreed to give up large areas of West Bank land in peace talks with the Israeli government.
The disclosure is among many in what will be called the "Palestine Papers"-thousands of pages of confidential records of Palestine will be more than a decade of negotiations with Israel. This is being described as the biggest leak of secret documents in the history of the conflict in the Middle East. The files of more than 1700 cover the period 1999-2010. They were received by the television news network Al Jazeera, which began publishing details of the documents on Sunday.
Among the leaked papers, offers related to East Jerusalem is the most controversial. 2008 Minutes of the meeting expressed the Palestinian negotiators are available to allow Israel's annexation of all but one of the illegally built settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, without any concessions to get back.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is quoted as saying, "We are offering you the most in Yerushalayim Jewish history," using the Hebrew word for Jerusalem. But Israel apparently refused the offer. Then-Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni told the Palestinians, quote, "We do not like this suggestion because it does not meet our demands, and it probably was not easy for you to think about it, but I appreciate it really. "
Al Jazeera says that the forthcoming document disclosed new details about Reduces Palestinian Authority was prepared to do on refugees and the right back, as well as on cooperation with the PA's security with Israel and its correspondence on the investigation of United Nations on the late-2008 attack on the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Authority officials have challenged the documents' truth. Saeb Erekat Chief negotiator called their contents, quote, "a pack of lies."
For more, I went from the Democracy Now! studios in New York by Rashid Khalidi. He is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, Department of History, and the author of several books, including adding Crisis: Central America and the Cold War in the Middle East and the Iron Cage: The Story of Struggle for Palestinian statehood.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Professor Khalidi. Can you answer these documents trove of Al Jazeera [inaudible] -
KHALIDI Rashid: Well, this was the first time which is supposed to be four days of revelations document at Al Jazeera and the British paper The Guardian. It is estimated that the concentration in the first group to be Jerusalem. And the revelations are quite striking. The most important, I think, what was not only the Palestinian negotiators to come, but as far as the Israelis were willing to accept concessions. Casts substantial doubt on the idea that Israel would have nothing but complete capitulation by the Palestinians to accept a person on everything they're claiming on every front. We have heard about Jerusalem. Probably more to come.
But another thing comes out very strikingly from these documents the extent to which the U.S. is twisting the arm of the Palestinians, to the extent that American diplomats, whether Hillary Rodham Clinton or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the previous administration This is unsympathetic to the Palestinians and they are too large, in the words of Aaron David Miller, our lawyers to Israel-it is actually worse than Miller, who was involved in negotiations for years, says, since these documents .
Amy Goodman: Now, what about Saeb Erekat said this is all "pack of lies"?
KHALIDI Rashid: Well, between Al Jazeera and The Guardian is claiming that they have carefully examined the place of provenance of those documents. I think time will tell. Yes-I have no way of knowing. I think any of us any way of knowing exactly where they come from. We are told that many of them come from the transactional support unit. Watching Al Jazeera last night, it was clear to me that they look like they come from within the Palestinian negotiating team, in terms of the letter and so on. Whether there could be forgeries among them, no one knows.
But many of these things, I think, fit the description of what we knew all, partly because people on the Israeli side, the Palestinian side and on the side of America enough said about the negotiations, certainly from 1999 through 2008, and the guidelines for the major concessions made by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, the guidelines for the intransigence of Israel in but refuse to accept concessions, or rather, banking concessions and then saying, "Well, now we want more. It is not enough for you to give up every single settlement in Jerusalem, but one we want all of them is not enough for you to say that you would make concessions inside the Old City of Jerusalem. we want more, as long as the Haram-al-Sharif is concerned. "These data are most striking. And I seriously doubt that, in some cases, someone took the trouble to create things that showed exactly how this process was underway. So I think we're going to find that most of the documents probably true.
Amy Goodman: Professor Khalidi, what you hit these documents, most of the public because the PA was willing to give up?
KHALIDI Rashid: Well, in Jerusalem, some questions. One is that the United States, who claim to support the position that undergirded by international law, that all settlement-wide is the Green Line, all settlements in occupied territories is illegal, in contravention of Fourth Geneva Convention, essentially pushing the Palestinians to make concessions on this principle, arguing that you are dealing with-I believe that Secretary Rice did this-you will not deal only if you give up-think like they were talking about Ma'ale Adumim, a settlement on the east of Jerusalem, in fact, it seems, took the Palestinians to surrender. The point here, this is Palestinian land, private property in many cases, across the Green Line in the territory illegally occupied by Israel and into which Israel has been exporting its population, in violation of, again, of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Should support the U.S. position in violation of international law could be terribly shocking, but see it laid out in this form, I think, calls into question, at least, not just the good faith of the American negotiators and the United States in this process, but has the good sense to anyone relying on the United States as an interlocutor or mediator with Israel.
Other items could be discussed, for example the-Haram al-Sharif, to be very shocking to people in Arab and Muslim world, because it appears that the Palestinian Authority agreed to some kind of shared sovereignty over one of the three most sacred sites in Islam, that property is not exactly a piece of territory but also sacred property of the Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem, and the committee has accepted that international actors, none of them particularly sympathetic to the Palestinian side Arabia, Britain, the USA and so on, Egypt and so should be a way-discipline on this most sacred site in all the Palestinian Muslims. This is quite shocking.
Amy Goodman: And the other report we just heard, the Israeli government to be cleaned in the attack on the Mavi Marmara, the flotilla helpful Gaza last May 31, professor Khalidi?
KHALIDI Rashid: Well, I mean, this is completely expected. The Israeli government-appointed Commission, rather than an international commission, commission depending appointed by the government, independent of government than Israel, has reach a white-washing of the government he appointed. I do not see why anyone should be surprised. He hewed basically just like the Israeli propaganda offensive launched on the day that this assault ship, which argued that the blockade of essential supplies from Gaza is violation of international humanitarian law, law that Everything that Israeli forces had attacked this ship, including the Turkish killing nine, including one American in Turkey, the legal citizens. Basically, this thing was written, or could be written, as far as what we've seen to this, by the same people in charge of managing an Israeli twist. It's taken several months to produce it, but the Israeli government spokesmen have written so easily. Almost every key argument in this report was commissioned to start the Israeli government spokesmen at the beginning of the affair.
Amy Goodman: Professor Khalidi, I want to thank you for being with us. Professor Rashid Khalidi Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University.
Rashid KHALIDI: My pleasure.
Amy Goodman: He has written a number of books, including adding Crisis: Central America and the Cold War in the Middle East and the Iron Cage: The Story of the Struggle for Palestinian statehood.
The disclosure is among many in what will be called the "Palestine Papers"-thousands of pages of confidential records of Palestine will be more than a decade of negotiations with Israel. This is being described as the biggest leak of secret documents in the history of the conflict in the Middle East. The files of more than 1700 cover the period 1999-2010. They were received by the television news network Al Jazeera, which began publishing details of the documents on Sunday.
Among the leaked papers, offers related to East Jerusalem is the most controversial. 2008 Minutes of the meeting expressed the Palestinian negotiators are available to allow Israel's annexation of all but one of the illegally built settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, without any concessions to get back.
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat is quoted as saying, "We are offering you the most in Yerushalayim Jewish history," using the Hebrew word for Jerusalem. But Israel apparently refused the offer. Then-Israeli foreign minister Tzipi Livni told the Palestinians, quote, "We do not like this suggestion because it does not meet our demands, and it probably was not easy for you to think about it, but I appreciate it really. "
Al Jazeera says that the forthcoming document disclosed new details about Reduces Palestinian Authority was prepared to do on refugees and the right back, as well as on cooperation with the PA's security with Israel and its correspondence on the investigation of United Nations on the late-2008 attack on the Gaza Strip.
Palestinian Authority officials have challenged the documents' truth. Saeb Erekat Chief negotiator called their contents, quote, "a pack of lies."
For more, I went from the Democracy Now! studios in New York by Rashid Khalidi. He is the Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University, Department of History, and the author of several books, including adding Crisis: Central America and the Cold War in the Middle East and the Iron Cage: The Story of Struggle for Palestinian statehood.
Welcome to Democracy Now! Professor Khalidi. Can you answer these documents trove of Al Jazeera [inaudible] -
KHALIDI Rashid: Well, this was the first time which is supposed to be four days of revelations document at Al Jazeera and the British paper The Guardian. It is estimated that the concentration in the first group to be Jerusalem. And the revelations are quite striking. The most important, I think, what was not only the Palestinian negotiators to come, but as far as the Israelis were willing to accept concessions. Casts substantial doubt on the idea that Israel would have nothing but complete capitulation by the Palestinians to accept a person on everything they're claiming on every front. We have heard about Jerusalem. Probably more to come.
But another thing comes out very strikingly from these documents the extent to which the U.S. is twisting the arm of the Palestinians, to the extent that American diplomats, whether Hillary Rodham Clinton or Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice during the previous administration This is unsympathetic to the Palestinians and they are too large, in the words of Aaron David Miller, our lawyers to Israel-it is actually worse than Miller, who was involved in negotiations for years, says, since these documents .
Amy Goodman: Now, what about Saeb Erekat said this is all "pack of lies"?
KHALIDI Rashid: Well, between Al Jazeera and The Guardian is claiming that they have carefully examined the place of provenance of those documents. I think time will tell. Yes-I have no way of knowing. I think any of us any way of knowing exactly where they come from. We are told that many of them come from the transactional support unit. Watching Al Jazeera last night, it was clear to me that they look like they come from within the Palestinian negotiating team, in terms of the letter and so on. Whether there could be forgeries among them, no one knows.
But many of these things, I think, fit the description of what we knew all, partly because people on the Israeli side, the Palestinian side and on the side of America enough said about the negotiations, certainly from 1999 through 2008, and the guidelines for the major concessions made by the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah, the guidelines for the intransigence of Israel in but refuse to accept concessions, or rather, banking concessions and then saying, "Well, now we want more. It is not enough for you to give up every single settlement in Jerusalem, but one we want all of them is not enough for you to say that you would make concessions inside the Old City of Jerusalem. we want more, as long as the Haram-al-Sharif is concerned. "These data are most striking. And I seriously doubt that, in some cases, someone took the trouble to create things that showed exactly how this process was underway. So I think we're going to find that most of the documents probably true.
Amy Goodman: Professor Khalidi, what you hit these documents, most of the public because the PA was willing to give up?
KHALIDI Rashid: Well, in Jerusalem, some questions. One is that the United States, who claim to support the position that undergirded by international law, that all settlement-wide is the Green Line, all settlements in occupied territories is illegal, in contravention of Fourth Geneva Convention, essentially pushing the Palestinians to make concessions on this principle, arguing that you are dealing with-I believe that Secretary Rice did this-you will not deal only if you give up-think like they were talking about Ma'ale Adumim, a settlement on the east of Jerusalem, in fact, it seems, took the Palestinians to surrender. The point here, this is Palestinian land, private property in many cases, across the Green Line in the territory illegally occupied by Israel and into which Israel has been exporting its population, in violation of, again, of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Should support the U.S. position in violation of international law could be terribly shocking, but see it laid out in this form, I think, calls into question, at least, not just the good faith of the American negotiators and the United States in this process, but has the good sense to anyone relying on the United States as an interlocutor or mediator with Israel.
Other items could be discussed, for example the-Haram al-Sharif, to be very shocking to people in Arab and Muslim world, because it appears that the Palestinian Authority agreed to some kind of shared sovereignty over one of the three most sacred sites in Islam, that property is not exactly a piece of territory but also sacred property of the Islamic Waqf in Jerusalem, and the committee has accepted that international actors, none of them particularly sympathetic to the Palestinian side Arabia, Britain, the USA and so on, Egypt and so should be a way-discipline on this most sacred site in all the Palestinian Muslims. This is quite shocking.
Amy Goodman: And the other report we just heard, the Israeli government to be cleaned in the attack on the Mavi Marmara, the flotilla helpful Gaza last May 31, professor Khalidi?
KHALIDI Rashid: Well, I mean, this is completely expected. The Israeli government-appointed Commission, rather than an international commission, commission depending appointed by the government, independent of government than Israel, has reach a white-washing of the government he appointed. I do not see why anyone should be surprised. He hewed basically just like the Israeli propaganda offensive launched on the day that this assault ship, which argued that the blockade of essential supplies from Gaza is violation of international humanitarian law, law that Everything that Israeli forces had attacked this ship, including the Turkish killing nine, including one American in Turkey, the legal citizens. Basically, this thing was written, or could be written, as far as what we've seen to this, by the same people in charge of managing an Israeli twist. It's taken several months to produce it, but the Israeli government spokesmen have written so easily. Almost every key argument in this report was commissioned to start the Israeli government spokesmen at the beginning of the affair.
Amy Goodman: Professor Khalidi, I want to thank you for being with us. Professor Rashid Khalidi Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University.
Rashid KHALIDI: My pleasure.
Amy Goodman: He has written a number of books, including adding Crisis: Central America and the Cold War in the Middle East and the Iron Cage: The Story of the Struggle for Palestinian statehood.
