What happens when a TV network takes potshots at the legitimacy of a government? The scene is playing itself out, with Al-Jazeera saying that the Palestinian government “has shown operational willingness to co-operate with Israel to kill its own people” and the Palestinian National Authority [aka the Fatah party] threatening to take the media group to court.
The fight comes down to a massive leak of 1,600 Palestinian documents, called “The Palestine Papers” or “Palileaks” for effect. The files are supposed to show the communication and negotiation of the Israeli and Palestinian governments, but are being exploited to delegitimize the Palestinian Authority for “collaboration.” Naturally, Al-Jazeera and the Guardian, the only two media groups to receive the documents, are making sure that they are as painful and ostracizing as possible to the Israelis as well.
The whole crisis also underlines how reluctant the Arab street is to make compromises for peace. Although the documents show a tough compromise hammered out, Palestinian officials are being forced to take a hard stance and appear as if they have not given up the “resistance.” To make the point, Al-Jazeera’s article states that “since the death of Yasser Arafat, Fatah’s policy of resistance to Israel has become one of collaboration.”
After the fall of Tunisia and amidst the Egypt crisis, Arab governments are looking increasingly brittle. The direction could be bad for American policy, or more nuanced.
The poison in the soup has always been the duplicity of the Palestinians. If a deal were worth anything, there’d have been a deal long ago.
While slanted against the Israelis, this leak takes direct aim at the Palestinian credibility — and may, just maybe, lead towards lasting peace.
The surprise here is that the Palestinians are surprised by the negotiating positions. In America and Israel they seem commonsense.
The negotiators proposed splitting Jerusalem and limited the number of “refugees” that would “return” to Israel. These 2 moves are seen on the arab street as a total betrayal of Palestinian rights. It just makes it obvious that the average palestinian wants it all and is totally unwilling to share or compromise.
The “peace process” is effectively dead only because there is no way to make the majority of palestinians happy without destroying Israel completely.