·East Jerusalem, within the
pre occupationmunicipal lines, shall be the capital of
Palestine,underfullPalestiniansovereignty
·ThebordersinJerusalemwillbedeterminedin
·Mutually
agreed arrangements possible,based on
reciprocity, on specifiedmatterssuchasaccessrights,burialrights,visitationrights,coordinationofmunicipalservices
accordance
with the rest of the borders andbasedon1967 lines.Allprinciplesregardingswaps that apply to the border generally shallalso
apply inJerusalem, suchastheprinciple thatallswapsmustbeequalandequitable.
·Land swaps in Jerusalem
shall not affectmaximumterritorialcontiguitywiththerestofthe West Bank
·Land
swaps shall not include any Muslim orChristianholy sites and holy places in EastJerusalem
·TheHaramalSharifcompound,initsentiretyon, above and below ground, shall
be underPalestiniansovereigntyandadministration
·TheWesternWalloftheHaram,includingtheWailing
Wall, shall be under Palestiniansovereignty
·Israel can be granted
prayer rights tothe Wailing Wall
(as opposed to theWesternWall)buttheserightsshallnot imply maintenance or other
rights toaltertheWallinanyway.
The PLO demands ownership of the entire Old City - the Jewish Quarter, the Kotel, everything. If pushed, they will allow Jews to visit, worship and maybe even bury Jews in the Mount of Olives - under heavy guard, they way they visit Josephs' Tomb in Nablus today.
The also distinguish between the "Western Wall" and the "Wailing Wall." They would only give limited rights to Jews to pray at the location of the Kotel, but not in the tunnels adjacent to it, or the "Kotel haKatan" to the north, or the egalitarian praying area to the south.
However, the Palestinians insist on total sovereignty over the entire area, the Kotel, the tunnels.
No Jew who has the slightest pride in their Judaism could possibly agree to any of this.
Religiousandculturalsignificance
·Safeguardthecharacter,holiness,andfreedomof worship in the city and its
holy sites andplaces
·TheborderregimebetweenPalestineandIsrael in Jerusalem shall correspond to
the generalborderarrangements
·
·Specific border
arrangements forJerusalemtotakeintoconsiderationthespecialcharacterofJerusalemandtheOldCityandwithaviewtoenablethefacilitated
movement of persons andgoodsacrossthetwopartsofthecity.
JerusalemCoordinationand DevelopmentCommittee
·Establishment of aJerusalemCoordination and DevelopmentCommitteetooverseecooperationandcoordination
between the PalestinianJerusalemMunicipalAuthorityandtheIsraeliJerusalemMunicipalAuthority
When they say that they will safeguard freedom of worship, what it left unsaid is that this is all subsumed by Islamic religious law. They would never allow Jews to visit the Temple Mount, let alone pray there, and the same would apply to the Tomb of the Patriarchs, which Muslims did not allow Jews to visit for hundreds of years.
We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.
In 2011, Al Jazeera and The Guardian released a collection of over a thousand documents related to the Israel/Palestinian peace process, most of them leaked from the Negotiations Support Unit (NSU)of the PLO headed by Saeb Erekat. They were known as The Palestine Papers. One of Erekat's many resignations came in response to these papers being leaked, presumably by one of his own people.
The articles at the time from Al Jazeera and The Guardian cherry picked out-of-context quotes from Israeli negotiators quoted in the papers to make them look bad. As far as I know, I am the only person who spent a bit of time actually reading the Palestine Papers and discovering many embarrassing things about the PLO as well as how Al Jazeera and The Guardian mischaracterized their findings.
After Saeb Erekat's death, I revisited the Papers which are still available at the Al Jazeera site. I found one document that is terrifically important, possibly the most important document in the collection, that no one else seems to have noticed - or wanted to report on.
It is called the NSU Negotiation Principles Matrix and it lists, over fifteen pages, every single issue that Israel and the PLO negotiated over, what the PLO's core position was on each issue, and what the PLO was ready to be flexible on and exactly how much.
It is a blueprint to the maximal concessions that the PLO would ever give for peace and what their true "red lines" are. This document, in all probability, is why Erekat dissolved the NSU and resigned - it showed all of the PLO's negotiating cards.
It also shows how impossible it is for Israel to make peace with the Palestinians. The PLO's public negotiating position is entirely consistent with this document and there is no reason to think that the Palestinian leadership has moved from these positions one bit.
Given that a new Biden administration will go back to an Oslo mentality, trying to negotiate a two state solution, this document is more relevant than ever. It shows, in the PLO's own words, how intransigent they are and how intransigent they always will be.
It makes no sense to pressure Israel for more concessions when the PLO already says that they won't be enough.
The matrix starts off with the PLO positions on the negotiations as a whole, upon which there is no flexibility.
·No
end of occupation until full withdrawal of armyandallsettlersandfullPalestinian controlover all the territory, its
inhabitants and allexternal
relations
·Fullnormalizationwith Israelby any
ArabStateshall only commence following the fullimplementationoftheTreaty.
·
Most of these are things we have heard before as PLO demands.
Note here that the PLO is insisting that they must receive all of their demands, completely and up front, before Israel gets anything. Notice also that the PLO is speaking for all Arab states, whether they like it or not.
·Must not include
recognition of certaincharacteristicsofthestateofIsrael,i.easaJewishstate.
·
Here the PLO is saying that they will never recognize Israel as a Jewish state. This is meant to protect the "right to return" so they can plan to turn Israel into an Arab state by forcing it to take in all so-called "refugees" which will be discussed later on in the document.
·Swap only settlement
built-up areas, not emptyPalland(i.e.,no‘blocs’).
·Swap only settlements adjacent to the border.Swapped areas cannot disrupt
contiguity. (Noannexation of Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, PisgatZe’ev,NeveYa’cov,Giv’atZe’ev,orEfrat.)
·Proposals for tripartite land swap with
Egypt (orJordan)shouldberejected.
·Noleasing.
·Most of the options with
respect toborders will be in the
various swapscenarios,whichshouldbeguidedbytheprinciplesherein.
·Residencyrightsisacreativeoptiontoavoid
swapping difficult areas andwhichmaymakePalestinianslookmorereasonableatthetable.
Here the PLO is saying that the 1949 armistice lines must be the basis for the final borders, and the Palestinians should even get the "no man's land" between the Israeli and Jordanian positions in 1949.
It is saying that it does not want to gain land in Israel that includes a single Arab. Only lands where Jews would be expelled, or empty land, can be swapped for small settlement areas adjacent to the Green Line.
It explicitly says that Israel must give up all lands that are not, in the PLO's view, contiguous with the 1949 armistice lines. Ma’ale Adumim, Ariel, Pisgat Ze’ev, Neve Yaakov, Giv’at Ze’ev, Efrat - and certainly places like Bet El, Hebron and scores of other communities - must be emptied of Jews.
But if Israel pushes back, the PLO can consider allowing a few Jews to stay as residents of Israel "to make Palestinians look more reasonable."
All of these are clearly non-starters for Israel. But the PLO is saying that it will not budge on this - hundreds of thousands of Jews must leave their homes before Israel can get any benefits of peace.
Delimitationanddemarcation
·Delimitationonagreedandappropriatelyscaledmaps.
·This is
purely a technical issue.Itshouldnotbecontentious.
MaritimeBoundaries
·Palestine
will claim full share of what we areentitledtounderinternationallawasacoastalstate.
·Maritime
boundaries must be agreed, accordingtointernationallaw.
·Include
clause that says maritime boundaries willbe agreed in the future [ideal time would be at orimmediatelypostCAPS].
·Willingtonegotiateshared/jointzones.
·Maritimeboundarydoesnothavetobeagreed at
the FAPS or CAPS stage. Itcanbeagreedpost-statehood.
·There are many options for
themaritimeboundariesinlinewithinternationallawandequitability.
Privateproperty
·Deal with private property
interests in theswappedareasseparatelyfromdelimitationoftheborder
·
SovereigntyandInviolability
·West
Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip areoneunitedandintegralpartoftheterritoryofPalestine
·Palestinian
sovereignty must be full andrespectedbyIsrael
·NOTE:
issues of sovereignty shouldnot
be confused with functionalarrangementsthatsuitbothPalestinianand Israeli interests. For example,Palestinecouldenterintoarrangementsbased on its sovereign equality
onvarious issues in accordance with itsowninterests.
The next section we will look at contains the PLO demands about Jerusalem.
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This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For 20 years and 40,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.
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