NOVANEWS
• Papers reveal MI6 drew up plan for a crackdown on Hamas
• PLO wanted to do more to prevent Gaza smuggling
The Palestine papers Photograph: guardian.co.uk
2.16pm: Publication of the documents presents a moment of truth for the Peace process argues Gadi Baltianski, director general of the Geneva Initiative – a joint Palestinian Israeli campaign aimed finding a settlement based on previous resolutions.
He urges both sides to now be more open about the negotiations.
An Israeli leader can, as if nothing, commit himself to a united eternal Jerusalem and a Palestinian leader prattle about the return of every refugee to his home. Neither of them is telling the truth and they both know it. In the meanwhile, they simply increase the public’s lack of confidence in the chance of achieving an agreement, and this lack of confidence becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that dooms to failure the very attempt, on the part of the leaders, to reach an agreement.
This being so, it might be advisable to give some thought to a revolutionary idea. Enough with secrecy, no more spin. The moment of truth has arrived. Both peoples are mature enough. They are more ready for the painful operation awaiting them than are the cowardly surgeons who are supposed to be performing it. Every sane person in our region knows that if there is an agreement, it will include the well-known principles appearing in the leaked documents, together with those present in any serious negotiation that has taken place up to now: a border based on ’67 with exchange of territories, partition of East Jerusalem on a demographic basis, extensive security arrangements, a symbolic gesture on the part of Israel on the issue of refugees without accepting the principle of the right of return, and a declaration of mutual recognition and the end of the conflict.
And now, when everything is not only known but also documented, our leaders will be good enough to tell the truth: are they for or against an agreement of this kind? Not why it is impossible to attain it, not why the other side is not ready, not why “not now.” Let them say once and for all what we are ready for, what our standpoint is, how we see the solution. The question of whether there is a Palestinian partner to the agreement is legitimate, in spite of the fact that the documents strengthen those who answer this question in the affirmative. It is incumbent upon us to demonstrate that there is an Israeli partner. To show, and not to conceal.
(That’s all for now. Thanks for your comments. Look out for the fourth and final instalment of the leaked papers at 8pm here).
1.09pm: A newly leaked documents reveals the hostility from Palestinian officials towards Tony Blair in his role as Middle East quartet.
My colleagues, Ian Black and Seumas Milne, write:
Tony Blair, envoy of the Middle East quartet, was attacked by Palestinian officials for being biased in favour of Israeli security needs and seeming “to advocate an apartheid-like approach to dealing with the occupied West Bank”.
“The overall tone, without making any judgment as to intent, is paternalistic and frequently uses the style and jargon of the Israeli occupation authorities,” complained a memo by the PA’s negotiations support unit reviewing his proposals. “Some of the terms (eg ‘separate lanes’ and ‘tourist-friendly checkpoints’) are unacceptable to Palestinians.”
In February 2008, Blair is recorded as telling the quartet – made up of the UN, US, EU and Russia – that he has a good relationship with Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak. But he warns that the current approach to the Gaza Strip – under siege since the Hamas takeover – “is wrong and needs to change immediately”. Blair found it “discouraging” that there had been no progress since the Annapolis conference, and feared “bad consequences”. But a Russian diplomat present at the meeting “got the impression that Blair was talking like Bush’s representative”.
12.45pm: After the election of Hamas in Gaza in 2006. Crooke, a former Middle East advisor to Javier Solana, said “schizophrenia” hit the European foreign policy towards Hamas.
Having signed up to “war against Hamas and Islamlic Jihad”, Europe then started talking about reconciliation after 2006, he told al-Jazeera.
“They are talking the talk of reconciliation and an inclusive settlement, but at another level they are going in the opposite direction. They are actively participating in a campaign to try and destroy the opposition to one of the Palestinian parties. That has haunted it [Europe] not only in 2006 but subsequently as well.”
12.26pm: Alastair Crooke, a former MI6 officer who also worked for the EU in Israel and the Palestinian territories, explains Britain’s involvement in trying to undermine Hamas.
Speaking to al-Jazeera he said:
“The turning point came in 2003. The Palestine papers show that there was a big shift in the decisions of the British government, and other European states, to enter the conflict – an internal Palestinian conflict – on the side of one party against the other party. In the words of some of the documents – to destroy and dismantle the command and the communications of this group, even to the extent of interning them.
“It became part of a strategy to divide the Palestinians. The moderates were to be supported, the extremists were to be hollowed out and weakened. It fitted in with the American rhetoric of the war on terror. After Hamas took control in Gaza, it became much more serious… The Palestinian security services from 2003 onwards increasingly became the arm of the Israeli security services.”
12.04pm: “We must not kill the peace process,” Abbas told the Israeli President Shimon Peres today, the Jerusalem Post reports.
In a telephone call to express condolences on the death of Peres’s wife, Abbas said:
“We have to stand like a wall against those provocative forces that seek to delegitimise the Palestinian Authority and thereby derail the peace process. We have to stand together against such forces.”
11.18am: Palestinian writer Laila El-Haddad reports on the reaction in Gaza and the West Bank. Her friend and fellow blogger, Lina al-Sharif, told her “This shouldn’t just be an expose of the PA, but also of Israel. And the US was witnessing all this and calling itself ‘an honest broker’! This is just yet another hit to the already dead peace process.”
But others still hadn’t heard about the leaks, El-Haddad writes:
In a bitter irony, and a stark reminder of the conditions many Palestinians in Gaza continue to live under, some cousins and friends there were not yet even aware of the revelations when I spoke with them, because they had no electricity.
10.53am: PLO adviser Diana Butto says the papers show how desperate the negotiators were for a settlement. In a Skype interview with the Institute of Palestinian Studies, she says she was been surprised by the reaction to the leaks. She had expected more Palestinian anger, but instead many Palestinians have just “shrugged their shoulders”, while some have blamed Qatar. In the long term she hopes Saeb Erekat is held to account.
To watch the video in full turn off the auto-refresh button at the top of the page
10.36am: Hamas claims about British involvement in the torture have been confirmed by the leaks, Osama Hamdan told al-Jazeera.
In an interview with the network, the Hamas spokesman said.
We have clear and solid evidence that the Palestinian Authority was using torture in a systematic way against Hamas members and supporters. On some occasions some of our members were killed under torture. We have evidence that some officers, mainly from the CIA and some British officers, were present when at least one Hamas member was killed under torture. Those papers and those leaks make clear that what Hamas was talking about is fact, it is not imagination.
10.00am: Hamas has pledged to seize back the initiative after the “betrayal” by the Palestinian authority.
Writing in the Guardian, Osama Hamdan, head of Hamas’ international relations department, said:
Our suspicion that the Palestinian Authority all along knew about and even conspired in the Israeli war on Gaza in late 2008 has now been confirmed by the documented testimony of both Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
As an immediate response to these revelations, we in Hamas have begun a series of communications and meetings with Palestinian factions and prominent personalities to discuss practical measures. It is our responsibility to regain the initiative in order to protect our cause and isolate those who have betrayed it.
9.47am: The Jerusalem Post is dismayed by the Palestinian reaction to the leaks.
Instead of at least being appreciated by their own people as savvy negotiators constructively working toward the achievement of Palestinian political sovereignty and self-determination, Abbas, Saeb Erekat, Ahmed Qurei and others involved in 2008 talks with former foreign minister Tzipi Livni and former prime minister Ehud Olmert have been castigated by the Palestinian street as traitors..
This aspect of the PaliLeaks fallout is, in part, the price Abbas is paying for his own and his leadership’s insistence on saying one thing in public and something else altogether behind closed doors…
The capacity to make peace depends on perceptions and preferences. What the revelatory PaliLeaks actually seem to be revealing most acutely, and dismally, is the extent to which the Palestinian people have yet to be prepared for such a change.
9.25am:Ha’aretz has more on that Abbas rally in Ramallah yesterday.
Supporters burned posters of the Emir of Qatar, who an Abbas aide said had approved al-Jazeera’s broadcast of leaked Middle East negotiation documents. They also burned Israeli flags with al-Jazeera’s name sprayed inside the Star of David.
“We will go to Jerusalem, a million martyrs strong,” the crowd of over 3,000 chanted, in a rousing endorsement for Abbas using a slogan not heard since the days of his predecessor, Yasser Arafat.
“The Palestinian principles … have not and will not change and the first of them is that East Jerusalem is the capital of the state of Palestine,” Abbas said yesterday.
He accused al-Jazeera of using “fake” documents to convict Abbas’ Palestinian Authority of cowardice and duplicity in confidential talks with Israel over concessions it would make for a peace treaty and a Palestinian state.
9.12am: Al-Jazeera’s Barnaby Phillips explains MI6’s apparent plan to detain members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad in this video.
To watch the video in full turn off the auto-refresh button at the top of the page
8.38am: The Brazilian based cartoonist Carlos Latuff depicts Mahmoud Abbas as a Jewish settler.
Yesterday Abbas dismissed the leaks as “soap operas”. According to AP he told supporters at a carefully orchestrated rally in the West Bank that he won’t compromise on Palestinian rights.
The Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz asked the Guardian’s Middle Editor Ian Black whether the paper wanted to end Abbas’ career by publishing the leaks. Ian replied:
I think that from the moment we saw the documents, we thought that they provide a very important insight on the Israel-Palestinian peace process. I think Mahmoud Abbas was in a difficult position long before the documents saw the light of day, as anyone who follows the story closely knows.
The documents are a symptom of the malaise affecting the peace process and you don’t need a PhD on the subject to work out the likely provenance of the documents. They reflect a deep unhappiness in Palestinian circles with the Palestinian Authority that has failed to deliver anything approaching an independent and viable Palestinian state after 20 years of negotiations. The documents themselves provide a very vivid look on the talks.
7.43am: Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, continues to protest against the publication of the papers.
He told Reuters that al-Jazeera was engaged in “vicious smear campaign” that has put his life in danger.
Here’s an extract of some of his comments:
Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
“What al-Jazeera people are doing is asking Palestinians to shoot me, physically. That’s what they are doing. They are saying: ‘You are guilty and thus you should be executed’.
“Speaking for me and my family, they are inciting against our lives…
“Somebody wants to push this region towards chaos…These documents are being taken out of context.
“We don’t have something called ‘official Israeli-Palestinian minutes’. We don’t. When you sit with people and take notes with people, that’s not positions. I can’t stand guard on anybody’s lips.
“In every single negotiating session I attended, the slogan (was) ‘nothing is agreed until everything is agreed’, and so far nothing has been agreed.”
The papers have been variously described as fake, quoted out of context, and damaging. In response, the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland gives a stout defence of their publication.
Of course publication will have political consequences, even awkward ones. But that cannot be for journalists and editors to decide: their job is to find out what is happening and report it, as best they can. The consequences are for others to manage. It has to be that way, otherwise newspapers would never publish anything: somebody in power would always be there to argue that it was best to hold off, that now was not the time. And the public would remain in the dark.
