Story here. (N.B.: This is not a Wikileaks story, though it says al-Jazeera is releasing the papers piecemeal “Wikileaks-style”; where it got them is not mentioned.)
These are memoranda of secret negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority 1999-2010. What is really embarrassing the PA is that the documents reveal they were willing to give up East Jerusalem in a final peace deal. I’m not clear why that’s embarrassing. Is it something about which the PA’s constituents are far more hardline than the leadership?
Topic for debate – the most obvious one: How will this affect future peace negotiations/prospects?
I am not an expert on the whole thing but I think it is pretty clear why the PA would be embarrassed. The negotiations are frozen because there is no settlement freeze. The neighborhoods in which they have demanded a construction freeze are the same ones for which they showed a willingness to negotiate away. It makes them seem irrational and useless as leaders. I already knew this but perhaps your average Palestinian on the street, having a choice between the PLO and Hamas, does not.
These papers are only valuable if they are affecting ongoing activity. Since there are no negotiations they can have no effect. I do not think there have been serious peace negotiations since about 2000. I really can’t wrap my mind around why Israel even needs to negotiate. The Israeli government can pretty much take whatever they want and I think the last decade has made that clear. There will be no real negotiations in the the future and the two-state solution will only occur when it is forced by the balance of Israel’s expansion against the pressure of shoving Palestinians into tighter places without resorting to ethnic cleansing or genocide.
I don’t think a bit of ethnic cleansing – sorry, “population transfer” – is going to stop Israel continuing to do what they’re doing. It’s going to take concerted international action like we had against apartheid-era South Africa to have any effect on Israel and that’s going to be almost impossible considering the power of the Israel lobby in America. Any attempt to use the UN is a non-starter so all you’re going to get are small-scale boycotts of Israeli goods etc. Israel are going to keep on keeping on, little things like demographics and internationsl law/actions/sanctions aren’t going to stop them.
I think Israel is in a conundrum in which it cannot take seriously the offer of peace by the Palestinians, and I think one of the central reasons as to why is because the Palestinians will not relent on the ridiculous right of return clause.
I don’t think any sane Israeli is ever willing to allow several million Palestinians descended from the refugees who fled in 1948 to come back.
The Right of Return is something enshrouded in UN resolution 242, so it must be taken seriously. However to say the Palestinians have ever asked for anything more than a symbolic gesture in negoiatiosn with Israel in this respect is wrong.
Trying to sell the Right of Return as a major sticking point is either ignorant or dishonest, the Palestinians are not going to concede it until there’s been a comprehensive settlement,but they’re not actually demanding it be put in to effect (thoguh in my opinion the Right of Return is entirely fair, it just is not realstic and the Palestinians recognise this).
Basically the Palestinians are demanding a full state on the lines of the 1967 borders and every country in the World (including the USA) recognises that is reasoanble. Israel keeps on coming up with ridiculous excuses.
Clearly, the Palestinians’ demands are outrageous. 1,000 a year for ten years - that would definitely mean the end of Israel - a veritable second Holocaust! Or, you know, not.
What I’m more interested in – what are the chances that an occasional observer of this conflict and not so ideologically hell bent approver of Israel change their opinion, now that the facts are in on who is really preventing this ongoing saga of human disaster to end?
I think such a hypothetical person would be most impressed with the level of fury aroused among Palestinians by the disclosure of these allegedly planned concessions.
The main reason the Israelis don’t treat the PA seriously is that they know the PA has little chance of delivering anything approaching peace by making concessions which are not acceptable to the vast majority of Palestinians - particularly where the Palestinians are split between Hamas and the PA, with the PA under siege internally.
We’ll see how things develop. They’ll probably be a lot of outrage in the short run, but maybe it’ll plant a seed or two. Perhaps the Palestinians will have the courage to follow their leaders.
Personally, I think that this is actually great news - I haven’t felt this optimistic about the peace process in years. I only wish they had gone public back in 2008. If the Israeli public had known how much progress Livni had made, maybe they would have voted her into office in 2009 instead of Bibi and the rest of those dickheads. Israelis vote according to their mood: if they’re optimistic about peace, they vote left; pessimistic, right.
The concessions were quite frankly overly generous from a point of view of equity, nobody but Israel and the American right think they have any right to settlements they have illegally built in East jeruslae and the West Bank. Not really suprising many Palestinians are not happy.
But that’s NOT the real story, if the offer was as described then that is jsut about as generous a stance as the Israelis could realistically expect yet they still went ahead and scuppered the subsequent negoitations. It’s clear Israel doesn’t want peace, it would rather have the Palestinians land thankyou very much. Not that a reasonably informed observer couldn’t have worked that one out already.
Again excuses, quite frnakly if hear another pro-Israeli excuse as to why they can’t make peace or as gto why they shot an old woman, etc, etc, I’ll scream.
Though I personally find it odd to have an unflattering description of the Israeli negotiators’ being labelled as “excuses”. I guess one person’s dispassonate analysis is another’s apologism.
Seeing as I just called the current Israeli administration a bunch of dickheads, I don’t think we quite match the description of knee-jerk Israeli apologists.
But scream your head off if you must. I can’t hear you from here, and you’ll just freak out your neighbors.
To come back to the State of Israel as it has juristiction over former Mandate of Palestine territories, which no longer exist. They should either go to the West Bank and I would say Gaza however it’s densely populated anyway. If ya wanna be all legalities and stuff I’d say give the territories back to Egypt and Jordan who occupied them before 1967.
You first have to ask yourself, if Israel gave Palestinians independence, and then there was a civil war virtually on your doorstep, what happens then?
Yes, of course they’re demanding a state along the lines of 1967 borders, however this doesn’t take from the fact they’re pressing to Israeli negotiators the acceptance of millions of refugees opposed (somewhat) to the very existance of Israel to be given immigrant status. So that in itself leads to two questions,
Either.
A) They’re not really serious to have a peace deal
B) They’ve boxed themselves into a corner considering the fact that they cannot relent from this pledge to their supporters, and if they do they’d be considered sell outs.
It’s got to be one of the worst negotiating tactics I’ve seen, and I bet good money if they relinquished this ‘right’ the steps of Palestinian statehood would be tentatively much closer than they are now.
