The Palestinian leadership was ready to give up most of East Jerusalem and substantially dilute the demand for the return of the war displaced Palestinian refugees to their homeland to strike a peace deal with Israel, leaked documents obtained by Al Jazeera television have revealed.
The “Palestine Papers”— comprising nearly 1,700 files and thousands of pages of diplomatic correspondence on the inner workings of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, also show that Palestinian negotiators were ready to divide Jerusalem's Old City. Israel was offered control over the Jewish Quarter, part of the Armenian Quarter and part of the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood. In addition, Palestinian negotiators are said to have proposed formation of an international committee that would take over Jerusalem's Temple Mount, where the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Mosque — Islam's third holiest site is located.
The papers throw light on the mindset of Israelis, who, backed by the Americans, wanted that Palestinians give up their claims over prominent Israeli settlements in occupied West Bank, apart from their East Jerusalem concessions.
In 2008, the Palestinian Authority proposed that Israel could take control of all neighbourhoods in Jerusalem except Har Homa. This was a much bigger advance over the Camp David summit, where Palestinians had refused to make this concession. “We proposed that Israel annexes all settlements in Jerusalem except Jabal Abu Ghneim [Har Homa]. This is the first time in history that we make such a proposition; we refused to do so in Camp David,” the papers quote former Palestinian Authority Prime Minister, Ahmed Qurei telling Condoleezza Rice, the former U.S. Secretary of State and the then Israeli Foreign Minster, Tzipi Livni, during a trilateral meeting held on June 15, 2008.
The papers also show that of the 2.4 million Palestinian refugees, the negotiators were willing to discuss the return, over a 10-year period, of only 100,000.
In a disclosure that could prove highly embarrassing to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, the papers allege that Israelis had “privately tipped off” Mr. Abbas, about Israel's winter offensive against Gaza in 2008-09.
However, the Palestinians stood their ground by refusing during discussions Israeli annexation of West Bank settlements of Ma'ale Adumim, Ariel, Giv'at Ze'ev and Ephrat, notwithstanding considerable pressure from the U.S. and Israel. Control over these settlements is vital for the Palestinians, to enable them to maintain the territorial contiguity of their future State.
