The Palestine Papers

I have not had the time to go through the seeming bombshell of Al Jazeera releasing as many as 1600 documents about negotiations between the PA and Israel.

You can read about it here.

At this time it appears to be the Palestinian Arab version of events, so whether they will be corroborated is an open question. They certainly seems to indicate that PLO negotiators have gone beyond their public statements in their offers. They appear to show that the issue of Jerusalem is essentially not solvable. For example, while the Palestinian Arabs think that their offer of letting most Jewish areas of Jerusalem stay in Israel's hands was most generous, even the most left wing Israeli government cannot consider evicting Jews from Maaleh Adumim or even Har Homa.

The Arab backlash that is likely to occur against the PA/PLO from these documents' release may be significant. JPost has more. Someone in the PLO obviously leaked them so this indicates a severe fissure within their ranks, despite (or more likely because of) Mahmoud Abbas' political strengthening of his leadership.

The Israeli backlash may be significant as well, although Olmert and Livni will be able to deny details since it is not their version of events.