from SLATE: >Al-Jazeera: Palestinians Offered to Relinquish Most of East Jerusalem
> Palestinian negotiators agreed to give up claims to most of East Jerusalem > during peace negotiations in 2008, but Israel dismissed the offer, reports > The Guardian. The unprecedented concessions in a city many Palestinians hoped > to make their capital are purportedly detailed in Palestinian negotiation > records. "It is no secret that … we are offering you the biggest Yerushalavim > [the Hebrew word for Jerusalem] in history," the Palestine Liberation > Organization's chief negotiator Saeb Erekat allegedly told the Israeli > minister. Israel declined the offer with the backing of the Bush > Administration. "We do not like this suggestion because it does not meet our > demands," said chief Israeli negotiator Tzipi Livni, according to the > documents. The revelations could be politically damaging to Palestinian > President Mahmoud Abbas and lend fuel to militant group Hamas' accusations > that the PLO had offered too much. The leaked documents "confirmed that that > the negotiating team has given real concessions in what is the basic > principles of the Palestinian people," Hamas spokesman Oussama Hamdan told > CNN. The settlements, built after Israel's 1967 annexation of East Jerusalem, > are regarded as illegal under international law. The revelations come as part > of a massive release of documents by Al-Jazeera. The U.S. State Department > has said it is aware of the documents, but "cannot vouch for their veracity," > reports CNN. Top Palestinian officials, including negotiator Erkat, have > denounced the documents as "a pack of lies," reports the BBC. >Read original story in The Guardian >[http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/23/palestinians-israel-biggest-jerusalem-history] > | Monday, Jan. 24, 2011 < -- Jim Devine / "Some mornings it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps." -- Emo Phillips _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
