Sunday, February 06, 2011

Temple Mount in the Palileaks Papers

My Right Word

Some examples of the stance of negotiators of the Palestinian Authority on the issue of the Temple Mount (my comments below):-

A.

Minutes from Bilateral and Trilateral US-PAL-ISR Sessions
Post Annapolis
Tuesday, 29th July 2008
Washington, DC
1PM – STATE DEPARTMENT
Office of David Welch Attendees:
Palestinian
Ahmed Querei (AA)
Dr. Saeb Erekat (SE)
Zeinah Salahi (ZS)

United States
David Welch (DW)
Jonathan Shwartz (JS)
Peyton


CR:
I understand that there is no agreement without Jerusalem. 1967 as a baseline. But if we wait until you decide sovereignty over the Haram or the Temple Mount…Your children's children will not have an agreement! Sometimes in international politics you need to have a device to solve the problem later. When it comes to holy sites, no one will argue the sovereignty of the other leave it unresolved [i.e. both Palestine and Israel could simultaneously claim sovereignty over the Haram].

SE:
And actually in life?

CR:
There are two other issues who will administer? Make sure that the sewer system, the municipal issues are resolved [notes that this was a problem in Berlin], safe access to all the holy sites for all. I understand that this worked well before 2000. Some kind of custodians appointed by the world, possibly religious figures, non-governmental people…One problem is that under the Dome is crumbling. Every time Israel tries to fix it, you call it excavations!

SE:
I understand last time I heard all the holy basin. [Notes that Palestinians are looking at modalities for access etc.]


B.

Minutes from Bilateral and Trilateral US-PAL-ISR Sessions
Post Annapolis
Monday, 25th August 2008
West Jerusalem
5h30PM – INBAL HOTEL

Attendees:
Palestinian
Ahmed Querei (AA)
Dr. Saeb Erekat (SE)
Salah el-Alayan (SA)
Zeinah Salahi (ZS)

United States
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (CR)
David Welch (DW)
Elliott Abrams (EA)
Jonathan Shwartz (JS)
Jamal Hilal (JH)

CR:
It's not timely for you or them. The Temple Mount and the Haram are on the same place, so that if you have to decide sovereignty…

TL:
The problem of the Temple Mount and the Haram will not go away.

CR:
We had an understanding about this! It's what we agreed!

[Argument ensues. CR notes that we all agreed that she would repeat what we agreed to happen in the last trilateral. The problem is that you are all trying to change that now. CR then tries to calm the situation and notes that she cannot help on Jerusalem today.]

SE:
We agreed that all is agreed, or nothing is agreed. We can't keep something out.

TL:
Agreement is the consent of both sides. We agreed in Annapolis that all is on the table. Everything is agenda, nothing agreed until everything agreed, nothing in the discussions is revealed. CR's position is what the US thinks needs to be discussed, but I cannot agree to anything. I can't say yes. The US can say what they want. We held negotiations on territory, so we could move on security first.

CR:
[Anyway, Jerusalem is on the map.]


C.

Meeting Minutes
Dr Saeb Erekat – Sen George Mitchell
October 21 2009

Attendance:

Palestinian: Dr Saeb Erekat (SE)
Rami Dajani (RD)
Khaled El-Gindy (KE)

US: Sen. George Mitchell (GM)
Amb. David Hale (DH)
Jonathan Schwartz (JS)
Mara Rudman (MR)

SE: We are on the record. I am personally on the record that GM should use the approach he took in Northern Ireland. It was brilliant. He did not bring the parties together until asking all the right questions. So he should ask: 67? Swaps? what will be percentage? You have the different offers. Can your experts define a number? The same applies to Jerusalem. Even Lieberman and Yishai don't want to keep the 300,000 Palestinians of Jerusalem. Even the Old City can be worked out [discusses breakdown of sovereignty over Old City] except for the Haram and what they call Temple Mount. There you need the creativity of people like me …


___________

If we need the creativity of Erekat, after Arafat turned down the very creative and even imaginative offer of "below-above" (at the 2000 Camp David talks, as noted here, "The two delegations laid claim to the same plot of land. Neither side was willing to give up their claim of sovereignty. In attempts to reconcile the irreconcilable, intense spatial contortions took place at Camp David...The most original bridging proposal at Camp David came from former US president Bill Clinton. After the inevitable crisis, Clinton dictated his proposal to the negotiating parties. It was a daring and radical manifestation of the region’s vertical schizophrenia. The border between Arab East and Jewish West Jerusalem would, at the most contested point on earth, flip from the horizontal to the vertical – giving the Palestinians sovereignty on top of the Mount while maintaining Israeli sovereignty below the surface, over the Wailing Wall and the airspace above the Mount. The horizontal border would have passed underneath the paving of the Haram al-Sharif. A few centimetres under the worshippers in the Mosque of al-Aqsa and the Dome of the Rock, the Israeli underground could be dug up for remnants of the ancient Temple, believed to be “in the depth of the mount”.


Barak accepted the proposal in principle. To allow free access to the Muslim compound, now isolated in a three-dimensional sovereign wrap by Israel, he suggested “a bridge or a tunnel , through which whoever wants to pray in al-Aqsa could access the compound” . But the Palestinians, long suspicious of Israel’s presence under their mosques, rejected the plan flatly. They claimed, partly bemused, that “‘Haram al-Sharif … must be handed over to the Palestinians – over, under and to the sides, geographically and topographically.” )

what is there to be creative about?

Erekat avoids responding to Rice's put-down of "excavations", telling off the Pals. thart they are making things up about what Israel does in Jerusalem.

And the Arab side continues to retreart from reaching any agreement on the matter, leading the Americans to become exasperated.

This is peaceful intentions, willingness to be moderate?

Nope. Not at all.

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