Like the Wikileaks documents, the Palestine Papers are interesting not just because of their revelations (some of these scoops were known before), but also, and perhaps even mostly, because of the tone and style of statesmen behind closed doors.
This nugget is from the Guardian:
PA leaders repeatedly threatened to abandon attempts to negotiate a two-state solution in favour of a one-state option. At the same meeting, Erekat declared that if the settlement of the West Bank continued, “we will announce the one state and the struggle for equality in the state of Israel”.
But the documents show US officials unmoved by such claims. Why were the Palestinians “always in a chapter of a Greek tragedy”, secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, asked at a meeting with Erekat in Washington in the autumn of 2009.
Her predecessor, Rice, had been even more dismissive. In July 2008 during talks with Palestinian leaders over compensation for refugees who fled or were forced from their homes when Israel was established in 1948, she said: “Bad things happen to people all around the world all the time.”
January 24, 2011
1:45 pm
Reminds me of Rumsfeld’s comment following the fall of Baghdad and the ensuing looting, “Stuff happens.” Typical.
January 24, 2011
1:57 pm
this is not a wikileaks document. this is from al jazeera
January 24, 2011
4:19 pm
Reminds me of what was written on a US soldier’s flak jacket in Iraq: “Shit happens.”
January 24, 2011
7:39 pm
The “great compassionate United States who attempts to bring democracy to all of the world” once again shows its true colours. What a bunch of disgusting, immoral people. History will not be kind to the United States and Israel.
January 25, 2011
1:42 am
Her job is to be a diplomat trying to get a peace deal – so why in the worldwould she not want to move on from discussion of the nakba? What would you have preferred her to do – launched into a 30 minute lecture to the israelis about how terrible the nakba was? What would that have accomplished? the left claims it wants peace treaty but between joseoh dana angry at the PA for ceding the western wall and you upset that the israelis weren’t lectured about the nakba means you either care more about sticking it to your country than actually making peace or you are just unaware of how real world diplomacy works. Do you think it would have been useful for rice to lecture the palestinians on the 1929 hebron massacre as well?
May 15, 2011
11:55 pm
height of stupidity….