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The Palestine Papers
May 14th, 2011 | 23 responses
Yesterday, I noted the ironic metaphor contained in the comments of the Palestinian and Israeli responses to George Mitchell’s resignation. In the first of two paragraphs I quoted from the New York Times account of that resignation, Fatah’s senior foreign affairs person blamed Israeli intransigence for the failure of peace talks, and in the second, a spokesperson for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, blamed the Palestinians. After quoting the paragraphs, I wrote:
Now, I am one who believes that the Palestinians have given up almost everything and the Israelis almost nothing in these past 60-plus years since Israel became a state in 1948, but… just on the level of ironic metaphor, could these two paragraphs be any better?
Now, today, Al Jazeera has an opinion piece written by the man who earlier this year leaked 1,600 documents related to the so-called “peace process” to Al Jazeera and The Guardian. He is Ziyad Clot, a French lawyer of Palestinian descent who served as legal adviser in the Annapolis, Maryland, negotiations between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Up until now, his identity was unknown. In the Al Jazeera piece, he explains why he decided to out himself, and why he leaked the documents in the first place (emphasis is mine):
In Palestine, the time for national reconciliation has come. On the eve of the 63rd commemoration of the Nakba, this is a long-awaited and hopeful moment. Earlier this year, the release by Al Jazeera and the Guardian of 1,600 documents related to the mislabelled “peace process” caused deep consternation amongst Palestinians and in the Arab world. Covering more than ten years of talks (1999-2010) between Israel and the PLO, these “Palestine Papers” illustrate the tragic consequences of a highly inequitable and destructive political process grounded on the assumption that the Palestinians could effectively negotiate their rights and achieve self-determination while enduring the hardship of the Israeli occupation.Since my name was circulated as one of the possible sources of these leaks, I would like to clarify here the extent of my involvement in these revelations and explain my motivations. I have always acted in fact in the best interest of the Palestinian people, in its entirety, and to the full extent of my capacity.
My own experience with the “peace process” started in Ramallah in January 2008 after I was recruited as an adviser for the Negotiation Support Unit (NSU) of the PLO, specifically in charge of the Palestinian refugee file. That was a few weeks after a goal had been set at the Annapolis conference: the creation of the Palestinian State by the end of 2008. Only 11 months into my job, in November of that same year, I resigned. By December 2008, instead of the establishment of a State in Palestine, I witnessed on TV the killing of more than 1,400 Palestinians in Gaza by the Israeli army.
My strong motives for leaving my position with the NSU and my assessment of the “peace process” were clearly detailed to Palestinian negotiators in my resignation letter dated of 9th November 2008.
The “peace negotiations” were a deceptive farce, whereby biased terms were unilaterally imposed by Israel and systematically endorsed by the US and EU capitals. Far from enabling a negotiated fair end of the conflict, the pursuit of the Oslo process has deepened Israeli segregationist policies and justified the tightening of the security control imposed on the Palestinian population as well as its geographical fragmentation. Far for preserving the land on which to build a State, it has tolerated the intensification of the colonisation of the Palestinian territory. Far from maintaining a national cohesion, the process I participated in, albeit briefly, proved to be instrumental in creating and aggravating divisions amongst Palestinians. In its most recent developments, it became a cruel enterprise from which the Palestinians of Gaza have suffered the most. Last but not least, these negotiations excluded for the most part the great majority of the Palestinian people: the 7 million-Palestinian refugees. My experience over those 11 months spent in Ramallah confirms in fact that the PLO, given its structure, was not in a position to represent all Palestinian rights and interests.
After I resigned, I believed I had a duty to inform the public of the most alarming developments of the Israeli-Palestinian talks. These talks were unfair, misleading and became unsustainable. Tragically, the Palestinians were left uninformed of the fate of their individual and collective rights in the negotiations and their divided political leaderships were not held accountable for their decisions or inaction.
Al Jazeera has the complete set of leaked documents here.
Steve Clemons comments at The Huffington Post:
This account reinforces for me why I believe that ultimately neither the Palestinian nor the Israeli political system can bear the stress of making constructive compromises leading to a two-state solution. Sitting both parties in the room and pushing them to work toward compromise is folly.
A structure of stakeholders that shoves the parties forward, with them reluctant but ultimately agreeing, is the only way I feel that a stable two-state producing equilibrium can be reached.
In blunter words, the United States needs to stop “urging” and “encouraging” Israel to end the occupation, to remove the settlements, and to negotiate with the Palestinian people in good faith. Israel will never do this on its own. It’s time to play hardball. If it takes ending all military aid to Israel, then that’s what should be done. But in the broadest sense, what has to happen — as confirmed by The Palestine Papers and Ziyad Clot’s article — is that the U.S. government has to end the pretense that Israel’s behavior is self-defensive, that Israel’s totally legitimate and essential right to exist is actually endangered by the Palestinian people, or that this is any kind of explanation for Israel’s military and political policies toward the Palestinians. The U.S. government has to end the pretense that Israel would ‘end the occupation tomorrow’ if the Palestinians would stop shooting rockets into Israel. The U.S. government has to end the pretense that Israel wants or has any intention of ending the occupation or the construction of new settlements. The U.S. government has to end the pretense that it’s Palestinian aggression rather than Israel’s colonialist ambitions that is the major roadblock to a two-state solution. The U.S. government has to end the pretense that we can influence Israel’s behavior by ‘understanding’ the ‘dilemma’ Israel faces, and that there is ‘another side’ to this story that the world refuses to see. Of course, there is ‘another side’ — probably many other sides — in terms of opinion and belief. But in terms of what is real and true about who has the power, about who is being oppressed and persecuted, about whose rights to self-determination are being crushed, about who wants to destroy whom, and whose intransigence is the reason for the failure of the peace process, there are not two equally valid sides of the story. And we have to end the pretense that there are.
23 Responses to “The Palestine Papers”
Question, out of my ignorance: What incentive does Israel have to “settle”?
dduck,
Good question, and hard to answer. I think it depends very much on what Israel (as a country, not necessarily all individual Israelis) wants. I mean, what Israel *really* wants as opposed to what they say they want. They are never going to have meaningful security with several million dispossessed, angry Palestinians on their doorstep. So if what Israel sincerely wants is an end to the conflict and the meaningful security that comes from the other side being given what justice demands, then they have a powerful incentive to settle — it’s in their own self-interest, because they will never be safe or secure w/o settling (in a way that is fair to the Palestinians).
On the other hand, if what Israel really wants is to annex most or all of what they call Judea and Samaria, and if they have a realistic understanding of the consequences of that decision (endless war, suicide bombings, terror, danger), and they are willing to pay that price, then they do not, obviously, have ANY incentive to settle.
Sorry, that’s a longer answer than I intended and probably than you expected.
Kathy
This sounds a lot like old South Africa to me.
And, I don’t see “settling” bringing total security anyway.
Might makes right?
“And, I don’t see “settling” bringing total security anyway…”
dduck – The Israelis see this differently. One of the purposes of the settlements and occupation is to make life so difficult that many Palestinians simply leave for other countries. As has been reported 140,000 Palestinians have had their West Bank residency revoked by Israel because they left the country for too long a period or for the most common reason Israel could not “find” their ID cards when they returned from vacation or school etc.
Thus they are denied entry and are unable to go to their homes or towns where they were born. In addition, if they owned property or a house Israel confiscates it under their absentee landlord provision.
It’s a game Israel has been playing for many decades. If they get rid of enough Palestinians then they can easily annex the west bank and provide citizenship to the remaining Palestinians without jeopardizing the Jewish majority demographics.
NONE, as long as the US backs them…
It hasn’t worked out quite as well as the Israelis wanted, in that there are almost as many Palestinians in Greater Israel as there are Jews…
EI EXCLUSIVE: Palestinian population exceeds Jewish population says U.S. government
Time to start some serious old fashion ethnic cleansing, I understand that ovens work very nicely…
Non personalized remark:last sentences sometimes are in poor taste.
This is extremely offensive. Your other comments are well taken, but the above is just gratuitously vile.
it’s easy isnt it sometimes when one doesnt have a relative harmed in the holocaust, in living memory, to make a mirthless joke about people being dragged screaming and burned alive in what are actually black iron cremation chambers with doors that bolt shut from the outside. At Birkenau/ Auschwitz, these are underground and the screams of the living burnt alive were said by one Nazi ghoul to be better ‘musically’ because they echoed throughout the cellar. Another kind of mirthless joke.
Sometimes if one doesnt have the screams of the innocents still alive and haunting your heart and mind–sometimes burning being the least of it for those of us who have heard our relatives who have been raped and maimed saying they wish they had been murdered instead– it’s perhaps easy to say things that would make my refugee family, or Dorians, or Kathy’s or other readers whose people were murdered and maimed, people of such great hearts, turn away in tears.
Separation from others is not what true mirth is meant to bring.
Just my .02
Thank you so much, Dr. E. I admit I was so stunned by what DQ wrote that I could not come up with more than I did, which was really not adequate to what I was feeling.
Kathy
Kathy,
Offensive, yes… But what Israel does on a daily basis is far more offensive, not to mention that from Gaza to Ovens is really not that big of a step…
After all a final solution must be found if Israel is to exist as a Jewish State…
Personal appeal, DQ, please back off.
Why? Are you afraid of the ugly truth?
If Israel could find a way to ethnically cleanse 6 million Palestinians out of Greater Israel without being made to suffer the consequences, they would do it in a heart beat…
You do not know what you are talking about. You would be hard pressed to find ANYONE more critical of Israel with regard to Gaza or the West Bank or anything having to do with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict than I am. But there is no analogy from Gaza to gas chambers and crematoria.
Your second paragraph is not a statement of reality or truth. Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state does not require gas chambers and ovens. It does not require Israel to become Nazi Germany. That’s obvious.
When you say that Israel must implement a “Final Solution” to remain a Jewish state (i.e., representing that this is what *Israel* thinks), that is an expression of hatred toward Israel AS a Jewish state. I don’t want to spend too much more time or energy on this matter, DQ, because it is so extraordinarily offensive and vile, but what you’ve written here boils down to is anti-Semitism. Your statements and the way you express your opinions about a very real tragedy for both Palestinians and Israelis is anti-Semitic. And as some people will readily acknowledge — for less than friendly reasons — anti-Semitism is not a charge I am inclined to fling about lightly. Some might wish I’d fling it about more, where it doesn’t exist. But here, it does exist. I recoil from your views, DQ. They ARE anti-Semitic.
Kathy
Kathy,
Israel as a Jewish Democratic State with less than 50% of the population being Jewish is an impossibility…
DQ, if you actually believe the assumptions underlying that statement, then perhaps you should go join the settlers in the West Bank. It’s their propaganda you’re spouting. At the end of the day, perhaps you have more in common with them than you might think.
Kathy
When a person is confronted with their own uncivil remark, and the person attempts to redefine that into ‘but look what you or x is doing’ … that’s certainly their choice. But it isnt discussion or thoughtful debate with others, which is what this comments area at TMV is for. There are other choices always.
archangel/ dr.e
Thank you again, Dr. E. I am going to let it go now, whatever DQ replies, if he does. I’ve said all I can.
Kathy
Kathy,
I have been following this thread. It is beyond obvious that Don Quijote does not have a clue.
In his (?) case, ignorance must be bliss.
The smug self confidence that “they would do it in a heart beat” displays a total lack of understanding the genesis of Hitler and the Third Reich as compared to the 21st century Middle East.
I always have regretted that some kind of arrangement like this in and near the Territories is not possible given the nature of Israel’s enemies.
http://geosite.jankrogh.com/enklaver/CoochBehar_Annotated.jpg
ROTFLMAO…
Israeli Troops Fire as Marchers Breach Borders
And I don’t have a clue…
BTW That’s the NY Times, considering their pro Israel track record, the blood bath must have been far greater and the violence far more egregious…
DQ, current truths are bad enough. The point is not to bring in prior atrocities as a viable alternative or to make a point. There are plenty of things nations have done, including the U.S. that are disgusting and reprehensible, and current acts pale compared to them. That is why I asked you to back off and also to keep you from being kicked off TMV (vanilla enough already). What some consider to be strong and unpopular (or plain disgusting) views sometimes have a kernel of truth hidden from view.
BTW: I don’t mind ugly.
It is interesting, that aside from DQ’s coverage of the recent Palestinian protests, there was nary a mention on TMV.