Saturday, February 12, 2011
Elder of ZiyonPalestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat tendered his resignation on Saturday amid deadlock in efforts to renew peace talks with Israel, a Palestinian official said.The files allege no such thing. The Guardian and Al Jazeera falsely reported that the papers said that; which means that AFP didn't bother to look at the files either and blindly believed the false reporting of their fellow anti-Israel advocates masquerading as journalists.
Erakat told AFP he was stepping down because of his responsibility for the disclosure of confidential documents on Al-Jazeera, shortly after his resignation was announced by senior PLO Yasser Abed Rabbo.
The chief negotiator said he was assuming "responsibility for the theft of documents from his office" that he said had been "deliberately" tampered with.
Last month, Erakat accused Al-Jazeera of taking part in a campaign to overthrow the Palestinian Authority (PA) after the Doha-based television began to release more than 1,600 confidential files known as "The Palestine Papers."
The documents, shared by Al-Jazeera and Britain's Guardian daily, expose concessions to Israel in 10 years of secret peace talks, embarrassing and angering the Palestinian leadership.
The files allege that Palestinian negotiators offered unprecedented concessions during peace negotiations, including on the ultra-sensitive subjects of Jerusalem and refugees, with nothing in return from Israel.
Any way you look at the papers, Israel offered to uproot tens of thousands of Jews from their homes, offered the Palestinian Arabs a state with about the same area as the West Bank and Gaza today, offered to take in some so-called "refugees," and offered to establish an atmosphere of true peace and normalization between two states for two peoples. It is simply a lie to say that these do not represent concessions from Israel.
