Is It Just Me? Or Is This Funny?

This appeared in today's New York Times. It appears to be based on a Wikileaks type disclosure of PA (Palestinian Authority) documents by al-Jazeera--

Palestinian Leader Dismisses Report of Concessions

By ISABEL KERSHNER

Published: January 24, 2011

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JERUSALEM — Palestinian Authority officials sought on Monday to portray a report and documents posted by Al Jazeera that detailed Palestinian concessions on Jerusalem as part of a political campaign aimed at confusing the public and weakening the Palestinian Authority’s president, Mahmoud Abbas.

Related

• Word of Palestinian Concession in 2008 Roils Mideast Debate(January 24, 2011)

The documents showed that negotiators had agreed to cede large tracts of Jerusalem despite longstanding protests against Jewish construction in contested areas of the city.

Hamas seized on the documents as evidence that the Palestinian Authority was “attempting to liquidate the Palestinian cause,” Reuters reported.

----i.e. the documents are authentic--------

With Mr. Abbas and his chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, in Cairo for meetings, a top Abbas aide, Yasser Abed Rabbo, held a news conference in Ramallah to raise questions about the documents’ authenticity and to suggest that some of them had been taken out of context.

----i.e. the documents are forgeries. But since they're forgeries what difference could the context make ??? ------

Mr. Abed Rabbo also said that the emir in Qatar, which is Al Jazeera’s home base, gave “a green light” to the effort to undermine Mr. Abbas. Officials with the authority have long complained that Al Jazeera favors Hamas.

-----i.e. the ruler of the country where the documents were published is an enemy of the PA and favors their rivals so the documents must not be legitimate.------

Mr. Abed Rabbo said he hoped that the emir would “expand the transparency” and talk about the United States’ military base in Qatar and Qatar’s relations with Israel and Iran.

------i.e. the ruler of the country in which the documents were published is a friend and ally of both Iran, which has sworn to destroy Israel with nuclear weapons, and of Israel, which has just sabotaged Iran's nuclear program with a computer virus. If this is true, we need to give serious thought to replacing Hillary Clinton with the Qatar-ese foreign minister who appears to be a very skillful man.------

Mr. Abbas also sought to discredit the report.

"What is intended is a mix-up,” Mr. Abbas said in Cairo, according to the official Palestinian news agency, Wafa. “I have seen them yesterday present things as Palestinian, but they were Israeli,” he said,

-----Apparently the mix up was that the documents were in Arabic rather than Hebrew? ------

adding, "We say very clearly, we do not have secrets."

-----At least not after al-Jazeera published all our documents. -----

Mr. Abed Rabbo blamed junior employees in the Palestine Liberation Organization’s negotiations department for leaking the documents,

-----Which you may recall are forgeries. Except for their being from the PLO's negotiations department.-------

and he said there was a simultaneous campaign by the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his foreign minister,Avigdor Lieberman, to undermine Mr. Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, and to discredit them as partners in the peace process.

------i.e. Netanyahu and Lieberman are trying to make them seem like people who would offer to make concessions on Jerusalem without actually intending to make any concessions on Jerusalem.-----

He also that some of the negotiators’ remarks published by Al Jazeera might have been made in humor.

------Anything for a laugh, those Palestinian negotiators. What kidders. Which is half true. They do seem to be kidding about ever having intended a peaceful settlement.------

He called for national and independent research centers to set up a committee to examine the documents’ authenticity.

----No, we already know that they are forgeries. Or authentic but released by junior officials. Or Israeli. Or authentic and from senior negotiators who were kidding. We need the research centers commission to find out which of those they are.--------

Later, about 250 Palestinian protesters smashed windows and sprayed graffiti on the building

-----Obviously furious about their leaders betraying them by conceding Jerusalem after saying for decades they never would??? -----

that houses the offices of Al Jazeera in Ramallah in the West Bank, The Associated Press reported.

-----Oh, OK, maybe not.------

Before they were removed by the police, the protesters broke security cameras and the network’s logos and painted the slogans “Al Jazeera are spies” and “Al Jazeera equals Israel” on the walls outside.

-----They're spies? Who publish their secrets on network television? --------

In Israel, the revelations were considered proof of long-established beliefs and positions, depending on who was doing the talking.

Mr. Lieberman, the ultranationalist foreign minister, told Israel Radio that if the previous Israeli government led by Ehud Olmert had been unable to reach an agreement with the Palestinians despite the reported concessions, then a long-term interim arrangement was necessary. Mr. Lieberman had long dismissed the possibility of reaching a permanent agreement with the Palestinians.

------i.e. The documents prove we on the right were right all along. (in spite of being forgeries, they were kidding, and so forth)------

But Peace Now, an Israeli group that promotes the idea of a two-state solution, said the documents showed that Mr. Abbas and his government in Ramallah “are the most moderate pragmatic partner Israel can ask for.”

“If we do not renew negotiations immediately, we will one day reminisce about the good offer that we turned down," the group said in a statement.

-----i.e. The documents prove we on the left were right all along. (in spite of being forgeries, they were kidding, actually Israeli, and so forth) ------

Some Palestinians said that while the issues being negotiated, including land swaps and the status of Jerusalem and its holy places, had been known, it had not been clear how far the discussions had gone.

“This confirmed the suspicions and doubts about the Palestinian negotiators,” said Mahdi Abdul Hadi, director of Passia, a research institute in East Jerusalem. “They got carried away without knowing where they were going.” He said the revelations were a blow to Palestinian pride.

-----i.e. How could their pride not be hurt by finding out a show had been made of negotiating peace rather than continuing an endless futile war? -------

Since he has left office, Mr. Olmert has spoken about the proposal he made to the Palestinians in 2008, including an offer to cede more than 93 percent of the territory that Israel conquered in the 1967 war. But the Palestinians had not publicized the details of their own concessions. Both sides negotiated according to the principle that nothing was agreed until everything was agreed.

-----Which means that the Palestinians could negotiate anything at all if they never intended to go through with it. If it should turn out for instance, that their agreement to peace terms were forgeries, released by junior officials, actually Israeli, from senior officials who were just kidding, and so on.------

The new details of how Jerusalem might have been divided during negotiations with Mr. Olmert’s government are in keeping with previous understandings of what drove the peace talks before they broke down in recent months.

The materials suggest that the chief Palestinian negotiator at the time, Ahmed Qurei, “proposed that Israel annexes all settlements in Jerusalem,” except for the Jewish district known as Har Homa.

“This is the first time in history that we make such a proposition,” Mr. Qurei was quoted as saying during a June 2008 meeting with his Israeli counterparts and Condoleezza Rice, then the United States secretary of state.

------Which would explain Mr. Abbas' ethnic cleansing remark about no Israeli being permitted to live in a Palestinian state. A Palestinian state is to be defined as places not containing Israelis. Which means the press liberals have been wrong all along about new settlements being futile because they would eventually be given to the Palestinians. Settlements work to expand the eventual scope of Israel. More, please.-------

Al Jazeera did not say how it obtained the documents, and State Department officials on Sunday would not comment on them, cautioning that they could not vouch for their authenticity.

------Or that they were covering their butts in anticipation of getting Wikileaked themselves. ----------

The status of Jerusalem is an emotional and symbolic issue for both sides. Still, it had long been understood that residential areas built in East Jerusalem by Israel since 1967 would stay in Israeli hands, and that historically Palestinian areas would become part of a new Palestinian state.

------All the while denying, to Palestinian audiences, any intention for there to be a two-state solution. One has to wonder whether they were "kidding" when they spoke in Arabic to the Palestinians or "kidding" when they spoke to the Western press. ------

------Kessler's Rule is that one can tell exactly where a writer's true sympathies lie as between Israel and the Palestinians by whether they capitalize the 'e' in east Jerusalem. No amount of protestations of impartiality and neutrality, which are all lies anyway, can survive Kessler's Rule. A writer who capitalizes and calls it East Jerusalem is pro-Palestinian, one who calls it east Jerusalem is pro-Israel. One capitalizes place names so East Jerusalem would be a different city than Jerusalem, just as South San Francisco is a different city than San Francisco. For pro-Israel people, east Jerusalem is merely the eastern part of a unified city so 'east' is an adjective, not part of a place name. It is an infallible rule. Every writer must pick one or the other. Isabel Kershner of the Times has picked "East". Remember that about her whenever you read about Israel and the Palestinians in the Times. They have picked the Palestinians.---------

Palestinian and Israeli officials have made clear that in the fall of 2008 they came very close to agreement on territory for a two-state deal, but they were divided over the West Bank.

------Huh? They were close to agreement except on what they were bargaining about? Here this disintegrates from reporters interviewing buffoons to reporters who are themselves buffoons interviewing buffoons.---------

The Israelis wanted to hold onto about 6 percent of the West Bank; the Palestinians were willing to cede about 2 percent of it for land swaps. But then Mr. Olmert, facing indictment, left office and Israel invaded Gaza occurred, ending the negotiations. New elections in 2009 brought Mr. Netanyahu and his right-leaning coalition to power.

------"Israel invaded Gaza occurred". This woman is paid by the New York Times for her writing.---------

The Palestinians have said that new peace talks should start where they had left off with Mr. Olmert. Mr. Netanyahu has said that he wants a fresh start.

Ethan Bronner contributed reporting from Jerusalem, and Khaled Abu Aker from Ramallah, West Bank.

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