What a apology for truth by the writer. Having read some of the papers I found no where that Israel was willing to negotiate with the Palestinians to settle the 43 year occupation.
Although the Palestinians were willing to sell their people out, Israel still refused to negotiate any agreement and the US went along with Israel.
The writer also made a misstatement of the facts regarding the negotiations. After they were cancelled it was not because the Olmert Government failed because of corruption, but due to Israel starting the war in Gaza .

They sit in Saudi Arabia and criticize those who actually have to deal with all the suffering.
Like Khaled Mash'al sitting in Damascus and ordering Hamas to be strong while they get bombarded in Gaza.
This has been typical of many of the Arab factions: demanding strength from the Palestinians while they themselves aren't the ones suffering.

The write should not apologize for the stupid criminally reckless leadership and negotiators. The one who should apologize and leave the Occupied territories are the leadership of the PLO, Abbas & Co and the entire PLO Executive Committee. This is not negotiations this is a sell out, self serving sellout. It is time for the Palestinian people under Occupation and in the Diaspora to understand what Oslo is all about, what the PLO is all about and what all of these so called leaders are all about. I am one of those who all along since Arafat took over the PLO believe and convinced that the PLO and the leadership in particular Arafat was nothing but a lie and a big fraud. The so called PLO was never a liberation organization but a self serving organization set up to finalize the deal that will end any hope for the right of return and for sure end the Israeli Occupation of 67 and East Jerusalem. Oslo as negotiated by not so brilliant Trio of Arafat, Abbas and Qurai has nothing to do with ending the Occupation. The guys were desperate to save themselves and save an organization whose aim and objective all along to conclude a deal that end any hope of liberation or even ending the Occupation, The leaked papers proved once again the leadership has nothing but contempt for the people and rightly so. Any people who put up with this kind of corrupt, incompetent and reckless leadership for so long... since Arafat took over deserve to be treated with contempt. The salaries of the Executive Committee and the jobs for over 150,000 who are serving and working for the Occupation is much more important than ending the Occupation. Oslo and its leadership are there to perpetuate the Occupation so that they can negotiate until end of time, and then pass the jobs to their sons and grandsons until such time there is nothing to negotiate. If the Palestinian leadership was an Israeli leadership I am sure they will be chased out of the country if not killed. Rabin was killed for even agreeing to allow the Palestinians to contract to manage the Occupation letting Israel off the hook for paying for the occupation, He kept Jerusalem he kept the settlements, he kept over 58% of the land, he kept the water, and he got himself a security contractor paid by third party and he was killed for even considering a peace with the Palestinians. Arafat and his Oslo team gave Israel all, and are paying for their own occupation. True, no doubt about it the Palestinians leadership is simply brilliant at at perpetuating a fraud and a lie... Time for the people to chase these guys out and sue a One State where Jews can live in Ramallah and Palestinians can return to Tel-Aviv. Time to put the PLO and the leadership out of business... Members of the Executive Committee all of them have no sense of shame... Like Abraham Lincoln once said " you can fool some people some of the time but you could not fool all the people all the time".. Without doubt the Palestinian people are the biggest fools on this earth and they deserve it.

Only those who have something to hide will hate these leaks.

With respect, Mr. Danin, your claim that the Al Jazeera documents contain no evidence of Olmert's "ambitious compromises" is false. Included in the leaks is a map of Olmert's offer to withdraw from 89.4% of the West Bank--which, unfortunately, you could only call generous if you were fooled by large numbers. Because the map includes Ariel and Maale Adumim--the practical equivalent of sticking both your hands in a pie and then asking why nobody wants it--Erekat, for all his weakness, was right to reject it, and Al Jazeera is similarly right to characterize his "biggest Jerusalem in history" counter-offer as an embarrassment. There was no partner for peace, there certainly isn't now, and your defense of the ongoing sham isn't helping.

Guardian reports that Condoleezza Rice suggested shipping the Palestinian refugees to South America. Priceless.

One thing is clear, the failure of peace efforts do little to help Abbas or Palestinians and do much to facilitate conflict, where Israel is better armed and has the upper hand. Abbas is much wiser to use the major advantage he has now, non-violent resistance, to oppose Israeli settlement actions. This is a path where Israeli power will do it absolutely no good and its use of force will diminish it in the eyes of the world while it strengthens the Palestinian efforts.

Abba’s present efforts in the UN may end of gaining more for the Palestinians than their direct negotiations with Israel ever could. In fact, Israeli intransigence now favors the Palestinian efforts more than Israel. As the world sees a corrupt and insincere Israeli government, the tendency is for the world to punish that corruption and insincerity, not reward it. The worse Israeli behavior gets, the more likely the world will turn against Israel and their occupation of the entire West Bank.

Don't ignore the fact that 14/15 countries on the UN security council have already openly stated they support the present Palestinian UN resolution. Even the US does not say it will VETO that resolution. This now opens the way for further condemnation and even sanctions against Israel should Israeli hardliners decide to ignore UN actions as some have indicated they would.

The WikiLeaks documents show the Palestinian leadership was sincere about negotiating for peace. The failure of the peace negotiations did not rest with a Palestinian side that was clearly willing to think outside the box to resolve their issues with Israel. One now has to question whether both the West Bank and the Syrian Peace negotiations were not both scuttled purposely by Israel so it might delay the peace process awhile longer in order to gain more advantage. Israeli efforts to up the ante and to try and facilitate conflict in the region (flotilla incident; bombing of Gaza to encourage further attacks; enhanced West Bank settlement activity to incite more violence) by Israel as an excuse to not negotiate. By not playing their game, the Palestinians could ultimately end up the larger winners in it.

The best thing that has happened in American foreign relations has been Wiki-leaks and the Palestine Papers.
I think rewarding the leak of so-called secrets would be an excellent step in improving the functioning of our democracy.

And yet Olmert still found time to bomb Gaza before leaving office. I guess he wanted to get it out of his system.

It would appear, from their behaviour to date and from the revelations in the documents that the Israelis are not prepared to compromise to a degree that would allow a real Palestinian state to exist. The logical conclusion is that they are hoping that conditions will be sufficiently intolerable that the Palestinians will gradually find opportunities to go away and leave the land to Israeli settlers. This leaves the US with a great opportunity to solve the problem. Just give every Palestinian a green card. Of course there will always be some who will spurn such an opportunity but, I suspect, that the vast majority will be across the Atlantic just as soon as they can get on an aeroplane. After all, if the US wants to give the Zionists Palestine, it's only reasonable that they should give the Palestinians an alternative.

You see, it is Mr. Danin’s job description is to explain that the black is actually white and the white is actually black.
Considering that the Palestinian papers are available on the Internet, Mr. Danin’s naked appearance could be rather funny if the matters that he is perverting were not so deadly serious.
In contrast to Mr. Danin concoction, the following is an example of decent journalism: http://www.counterpunch.org/christison01252011.html

The last great act of resistance that the PLO can do is to disband itself, and abolish its associated entities. Effectively ending the so-called "peace process".
The PLO, especially Fatah are so infected with Israeli politics, have grown so corrupt, have become so complicit, that their continued existence is an existence which is collaborative with the Israeli occupation.

For Israel, they are doing brilliant, they are doing simply brilliant considering the circumstances and times that they are in. For them, to have the leaders of their victims become so concessionary, so feeble in its vision, is the best thing next to the creation of Israel.
So much so that negotiations with such leadership has become in of itself, a way for Israel to actually buy more time to create more "facts" on the ground. Meanwhile, Fatah has been reduced to a meaningless function, and has even developed what the PLO`s Salam Fayyad himself called "collaborative institutions". Essentially, to take foreign aid money that comes to support infrastructure and social services and spend it on a security apparatus specifically tasked with aiding the occupiers and eliminating ALL armed resistance groups.

The militant factions that once served as a bulwark for the PLO against the Israelis have all died with Arafat, they are now nothing more than a token existence of a past gloried with resistance.
Now, settlements are being built in an unrepentant pace, the Aparthied Wall is nearing completion, Gaza is still under siege, and Palestinians are slowly losing hope. Why? How did this happen?

The collaboraters. Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayyad, Saeb Erekat, Ahmed Qurei. They speak with fork-tongues. There is no peace, Israel is building an Aparthied Wall, settlements and blockading Gaza, not to achieve peace. But to achieve the dream of a Greater Israel, from Judea to Samaria.

After abolishing the cancerous PLO, grassroots international support ought to be drummed up, and in a slow momentum mobilize Palestinians in one climax of frustration. Then see what Israel will do. Peace or Apatheid then, as a former US President said.

The last great act of resistance that the PLO can do is to disband itself, and abolish its associated entities. Effectively ending the so-called "peace process".
The PLO, especially Fatah are so infected with Israeli politics, have grown so corrupt, have become so complicit, that their continued existence is an existence which is collaborative with the Israeli occupation.

For Israel, they are doing brilliant, they are doing simply brilliant considering the circumstances and times that they are in. For them, to have the leaders of their victims become so concessionary, so feeble in its vision, is the best thing next to the creation of Israel.
So much so that negotiations with such leadership has become in of itself, a way for Israel to actually buy more time to create more "facts" on the ground. Meanwhile, Fatah has been reduced to a meaningless function, and has even developed what the PLO`s Salam Fayyad himself called "collaborative institutions". Essentially, to take foreign aid money that comes to support infrastructure and social services and spend it on a security apparatus specifically tasked with aiding the occupiers and eliminating ALL armed resistance groups.

The militant factions that once served as a bulwark for the PLO against the Israelis have all died with Arafat, they are now nothing more than a token existence of a past gloried with resistance.
Now, settlements are being built in an unrepentant pace, the Aparthied Wall is nearing completion, Gaza is still under siege, and Palestinians are slowly losing hope. Why? How did this happen?

The collaboraters. Fatah, Mahmoud Abbas, Salam Fayyad, Saeb Erekat, Ahmed Qurei. They speak with fork-tongues. There is no peace, Israel is building an Aparthied Wall, settlements and blockading Gaza, not to achieve peace. But to achieve the dream of a Greater Israel, from Judea to Samaria.

After abolishing the cancerous PLO, grassroots international support ought to be drummed up, and in a slow momentum mobilize Palestinians in one climax of frustration. Then see what Israel will do. Peace or Apatheid then, as a former US President said.

Mr Danin, with all due respect you confuse yourselves. In the opening paragraph you call the Palestine Papers “a direct attack on the leadership of the PLO”. First of all, news flash, it is not the PLO, unless you meant to call it that. Now, about your confusion, somehow you go on to praise the documents “..However, the documents actually show that the Annapolis process had succeeded in bringing Israelis and Palestinians together, under U.S. leadership, to discuss the most sensitive issues that divide them. They show flexibility, agility, and candor on both sides of the debate.” Again, the way I read them, they show flexibility only on the Palestinian side, not on the Israeli, unless your “sources” know better. Certainly if Israel made any concession whatsoever, I would expect it would make headline news all over the world.
No one has to take sides here. We all need to commit to upholding the truth.
Regards.
Zafar Khan
http://www.SilentConscience.org

Israel has already pulled out of Gaza. They have offered to pull out of most of the West Bank and dimantle the Jewish communities in those areas. They have offered to put the holiest sites in Judaism into play.

It is actually nice to see the the Palestinians were offering concessions; I really didn't think they were offering anything except their own maximalist positions. Based on what the Palestinians offered and what Israel has offered, they are not that far apart. It should be possible to negotiate a treaty.

Of course, if the goal is to destroy Israel or stand up for "principles" (you can't keep land you conquer in a defensive war, all the great-grandchildren of the Palestinian refugees of 1948 must be allowed to return to the places where their great grandparents lived) that have never been implemented in human history, then you should admit that it is the existence of Israel you have a problem with, and you can't expect Israel to participate in a peace process that is expected to lead to the end of its existence as a Jewish State and its replacement with Palestine "from river to sea".

This article completely ignores what is really important about the disclosures. The Israelis were intransigent, so completely intransigent that it proves they had no good faith in the so-called negotiations in the so called process. There was nothing the PA could offer, and nothing the PA could prepare its public for, that could possibly have made a difference.

The US government knew exactly what was going on, and was complicit in it. The only goal seems to have been to hide the truth from the world so the Israeli could continue their abuse of the Palestinians with less outside pressure.

It was shameful. We may have suspected it, but without proof nobody would believe it. Now we know.

The "Peace Process" was a fake, and always meant to be a fake, for the sole purpose of abusing the Palestinians and enabling Israeli crimes already expressly condemned by the Security Council.

That you could fail to mention it at all, and blather on about how the PA could not get its public to go along with its offer, shows either you are so partisan as to be completely blind, or you are just spreadling manipulative propaganda for your side.

This article is disgusting. Totally disgusting and without any excuse.

It seems that if Palestine could only be recognized as a state, then many of their problems would be solved. Israel continued to strangle the Palestinians through the entirety of their negotiations. Furthermore, have we already forgotten Israel's economic controls over Palestine by keeping it on the verge of total collapse? Didn't FP recently comment on this?