Join The Conversation Now! -- A GLOBAL Debate
Idon Natanzon
The Absence of the Palestine Papers
Each day we get another piece of the puzzle, another precious inside look. Never in our history have we known such intimate details regarding the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and never have we been given such a golden opportunity to reflect back.
Each day this past week Al Jazeera and The Guardian, a British daily newspaper, have been releasing hundreds of documents, conversations and memos between the highest levels of the negotiating parties. Names such as Olmert, Livni, Abbas and Erakat are not peripherally linked to these documents but instead play the main characters.
So far we’ve learned that the Palestinian negotiators were willing to cede large tracts of the West Bank and Jerusalem, had reduced their right of return to a symbolic gesture and were coordinating with the Israeli government through high-level security operations including targeted killings and even Operation Cast Lead. The Israelis have meanwhile shown us, (particularly) under the Olmert administration, that a serious priority was given to ending the conflict, that more settlements would be dismantled and that the Palestinian quality of life would go up. We were also shown that in the end, differences about specific details led to an impasse of progress and no deal.