For an intro to the topic, see Oui’s earlier diary, WikiLeaks: The Palestinian Papers.
Here I present some additional commentary about the Palestinian Papers. A First Look at The Palestine Papers was posted by CTuttle on MyFDL.
As a former Director of the CIA Counter-Terrorism Center (CTC) from 2004 to 2006, who coordinated CIA activities in Iraq from 2002 to 2004 as the Iraq Mission Manager, and was the CIA Chief of Station in Islamabad, Pakistan before and after the 9/11 attacks. Earlier, he was the deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Near East and South Asia, and also served as the CIA’s chief of operational training, Al Jazeera’s Robert Grenier, had this to say about the Palestine Papers…
All of us approach this record burdened with our own backgrounds and experiences. I assess them as an American, and as a former government practitioner. As an American, the reaction I draw, frankly, is one of shame. My government has consistently followed the path of least resistance and of short-term political expediency, at the cost of decency, justice, and our clear, long-term interests. More pointedly, The Palestine Papers reveal us to have alternatively demanded and encouraged the Palestinian participants to take disproportionate risks for a negotiated settlement, and then to have refused to extend ourselves to help them achieve it, leaving them exposed and vulnerable. The Palestine Papers, in my view, further document an American legacy of ignominy in Palestine.
As a government practitioner, my reaction is one of empathy for the Palestinian fellow-practitioners whose record and whose impressions these pages reflect. I know well that to achieve anything in public affairs, one will always in the end be compromised to some extent. It is easy for the observers, for the armchair analysts, to criticize; but my sympathies lie with those who enter the ring, who fight and who risk failure for what they believe.
The Palestinian leadership will surely face criticism for what The Palestine Papers reveal. Some will be merited; some not. The overwhelming conclusion one draws from this record is that the process for a two-state solution is essentially over, that the history of the peace process is one of abject failure for all concerned. The Palestinian participants, having lost the most, will likely suffer most. But I can only come away with the passionately-held belief that these people deserved better.
They do deserve so much better. The pizza pie analogy has been the most apt descriptor (Tuttle)
Time to stop the charade! There are no concessions the Palestinians can make that would alter Israel’s long range plan to annex the Palestinian territories (minus Gaza) into Greater Israel.
Barak couldn’t deliver in 2000 just as Olmert couldn’t deliver in 2008. As Barak admitted in 2005, not even a single member of his own party, Labor, as part of the Knesset, would have voted to withdraw from a single settlement. In retrospect, both of these efforts were mostly public relations campaigns, with Netanyahu keeping up the pretensions more recently by conceding to a two-state solution. And Barak finally came out of the closet as being part of the colonial right wing.
Ever since the Oslo Accords of the early 90s, when Israel accelerated its settlement of the Palestinian territories, we have been seeing a game played out by Israel to stall and avoid any final peace deal with the Palestinians that could add up to two-states side by side. Netanyahu has already made clear that a sovereign, contiguous state will be impossible for “security” reasons, which will necessitate taking the entire Jordan Valley and large blocks of land surrounding the large cities and towns Israel has built on Palestinian land. Annexation is Israel’s next move, which may happen in a few decades when it is clear that the Palestinians aren’t interested in peace.
As Mearshirmer made clear recently: the next stage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will revolve around the question: are they bantustans (Apartheid) or are they cantons, and the boycott movement that will eventually come out in the open.
Henry Norr and Adam Horowitz at Mondoweiss give their take on these recent revelations:
Today, al-Jazeera has obtained a cache of nearly 1,700 confidential files – memos, e-mails, maps, minutes from private meetings, accounts of high level exchanges, strategy papers and even power point presentations – dealing with the so-called peace process from 1999 to 2010. Al Jazeera has shared them with the Guardian (UK), and both organizations today began posting and and analyzing them.
The Palestinian Authority comes off looking particularly bad, or in the words of the Guardian “weak – and increasingly desperate.” Writing in the Guardian, Karma Nabulsi says this leak should mark the end of the PA:
It’s over. Given the shocking nature, extent and detail of these ghastly revelations from behind the closed doors of the Middle East peace process, the seemingly endless and ugly game is now, finally, over. Not one of the villains on the Palestinian side can survive it. With any luck the sheer horror of this account of how the US and Britain covertly facilitated and even implemented Israeli military expansion – while creating an oligarchy to manage it – might overcome the entrenched interests and venality that have kept the peace process going. A small group of men who have polluted the Palestinian public sphere with their private activities are now exposed.
It seems they won’t go down without a fight. So far PA officials are choosing to shoot the messenger and are claiming Al-Jazeera has declared war on Palestinians.
In short, the peace process is over.
More from Mondoweiss::
We will be dissecting the documents and following the fallout in days to come. There will be plenty more to discuss – Haaretz is reporting that a document will released in coming days outlining “an Israeli offer to transfer Israeli Arabs citizens to the territory of a future Palestinian state.” One of the quick responses is that this seems to mark the end of what has been known as the peace process. Writing on the Al-Jazeera English website ex-CIA official Robert L. Grenier says “The overwhelming conclusion one draws from this record is that the process for a two-state solution is essentially over, that the history of the peace process is one of abject failure for all concerned.”
Here are some summary observations from the Guardian:
– “The overall impression that emerges from the documents, which stretch from 1999 to 2010, is of the weakness and growing desperation of PA leaders as failure to reach agreement or even halt all settlement temporarily undermines their credibility in relation to their Hamas rivals; the papers also reveal the unyielding confidence of Israeli negotiators and the often dismissive attitude of US politicians towards Palestinian representatives”
-“Livni is recorded confirming what Palestinians have always accused Israeli governments of doing: creating facts on the ground to prevent the possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza.
At a west Jerusalem meeting in November 2007, she told Qurei that she believed Palestinians saw settlement building as meaning “Israel takes more land [so] that the Palestinian state will be impossible”; that “the Israel policy is to take more and more land day after day and that at the end of the day we’lll say that is impossible, we already have the land and we cannot create the state”. She conceded that had been “the policy of the government for a really long time”.
“The documents reveal Palestinian Authority leaders often tipping over into making ingratiating appeals to their Israeli counterparts, as well as US leaders. “I would vote for you,” the then senior Palestinian negotiator, Ahmed Qureia (also known as Abu Ala), told Tzipi Livni, Israel’s foreign minister, during talks at the King David hotel in Jerusalem in June 2008, as she was preparing for elections in her Kadima party. Given the choice, Livni shot back, “you don’t have much of a dilemma.”
Qureia’s comment echoed earlier private remarks by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen), to Ariel Sharon in a June 2005 meeting at the then Israeli prime minister’s residence which would have caused outrage if they had been made known at the time.
Having listened to Sharon berate him for failing to crack down on the “terrorist infrastructure” of Hamas and Islamic jihad, Abbas was recorded as noting “with pleasure the fact that Sharon considered him a friend, and the fact that he too considered Sharon a friend”, adding that “every bullet that is aimed in the direction of Israel is a bullet aimed at the Palestinians as well”. In March 2008, the documents show that Qureia greeted the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, with the words: “You bring back life to the region when you come.””
-“All the US government was interested in, Erekat went on, was “PR, quick news, and we’re cost free”, ending up with the appeal: “What good am I if I’m the joke of my wife, if I’m so weak?””
Abbas responded, carried by Haaretz:
`Abbas: Concessions in Palestine papers came from Israel, not us’
PA president says that the documents leaked by Al-Jazeera purposely reverse the Israeli and Palestinian positions.
Here’s Juan Cole’s coverage on Informed Comment:
Aljazeerah’s Leaks Reveal Sham `Peace Process,’ Israeli Stonewalling
The Qatar satellite channel Aljazeera has gotten hold of some 1600 documents from the Palestine Authority regarding negotiations with Israel, which cast the Israelis, the Americans and the Fatah faction of Palestinians in the worst possible light. The leaked documents were shared exclusively with The Guardian newspaper.
The documents could well destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization, a coalition of parties that includes Fatah, which is led by Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Among the politicians who comes off the worst in these documents is Saeb Erekat. The Palestinian Authority is revealed as feeble as a kitten. Like a a spurned suitor, Erekat kept offering the Israelis more and more, and they kept rejecting his overtures.
The documents have frank admissions. Tzipi Livni said:
“Israel takes more land [so] 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 is impossible, we already have the land and we cannot create the state”. She conceded that it had been “the policy of the government for a really long time”.
“that is impossible, we have the land and we cannot create the state!” This intent would appear to be the legacy of the Oslo Accords. And if Clinton would allow the number of settlers and settlements to double during the 90s, during his administration, one must somehow believe that he understood Israel’s long-term plan, and went along with it. Camp David 2000 was a stage, nothing more. Clinton also went along with Dennis Ross’ plan to blame Arafat for the Camp David failure.
So it’s over. Now what?