'Palestine Papers' stir fury over bowing to Israel

Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat listens along side Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas (C) during a meeting in Cairo for talks with President Hosni Mubarak (R) on the stalled Middle East peace process yesterday, a day after leaks in the media revealed secret documents on a decade of peace talks with Israel.Photo: AFP

Palestinian offers of major concessions to Israel on Jerusalem and refugees laid out in documents leaked to the press, yesterday provoked an angry and defensive reaction from the Ramallah leadership.
Details of the proposals, laid out during peace talks in 2008, emerged late on Sunday when Al-Jazeera began publishing the first of 1,600 confidential documents known as the "Palestine Papers."
The Arab satellite news channel said the leaks cover more than 10 years of secret talks between Israel and the Palestinians.
The documents, which were shared with British daily the Guardian, stirred surprise and anger among Palestinian officials, with chief negotiator Saeb Erakat dismissing them as "full of distortions."
"We don't have anything to hide," Erakat told AFP by telephone from Cairo yesterday, insisting the revelations had been "taken out of context and contain lies."
"Al-Jazeera's information is full of distortions and fraud," he said.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas, who is currently in the Egyptian capital for talks with senior officials, insisted that the Palestinian Authority (PA) had shared every development in the peace process with the Arab world's leadership.
"With everything we have done -- in terms of activities with the Israelis or the Americans -- we have given the Arabs details," Abbas said in remarks published by Palestinian news agency Wafa.
"I don't know where Al-Jazeera got these secret things from, and there is nothing hidden from the Arab brothers," he added, adding that Arab nations were kept up to date through the 22-member Arab League based in Cairo.