"Distortions and Fraud"

Offensively intolerable to the Palestinians, sensible enough, were it to have been true, to the Israelis. Carve out those areas within Israel's borders where majority Arab Palestinians live under Israeli rule and citizenship, and incorporate them into the nascent Palestinian state. Balance that by ceding those areas within the West Bank where sufficient Israelis live to merit the action, and incorporate them into the Israeli borders.

Solve the aching problem of East Jerusalem by submitting its administration, protection and neutrality to a trusted, special-purpose third party to ensure that the holiest site in Judaism remains accessible to Jews, and that the third-holiest site in Islam is equally accessible to Muslims, but with nothing like the preferential treatment given to Muslims as currently exists.

As for the Right of Return, no such thing; there is no 'right' for descendants of the original Palestinians who chose or were forced to flee the fledgling State of Israel. Saeb Erakat may have declared that the accessed/purloined papers were false and taken out of context, but there have been expressions of the utility toward the peace process of ensuring that returnees remain under Palestinian rule.

Problems solved. More or less. A state is negotiating with a population without an established state. There is no force on Earth, moral or legal, that propounds the theory and the necessity that the established state forego many of its most vital needs to satisfy the demands of the state-to-be which has flourished with co-operation from the state, yet resents and abhors its existence.

The positions accredited by the archival material given to Al Jazeera purporting to reveal the double-crossing motions of the Palestinian Authority for the purpose of achieving a peace settlement opening the door to nationhood for the Palestinians are obviously those of Israel, cross-referenced to the PA. The purpose; pure mischief, to make certain the unravelling of the peace negotiations remains permanent.

Who, in the Middle East, stands to profit from the interference and the inferences? Why, all those entities, formal and informal, national and religious, who choose to spike the goblet of potential accord with a poison draught of ongoing hatred, revenge and ongoing plans to destroy Israel. Stand up and take a bow, Syria, Iran and Lebanon, for starters. Qatar? Turkey?

There are some obvious truths that were revealed previously, but denied in self-defence. That in fact Israel did inform the PA leadership well in advance of its defensive invasion of Gaza, and without too much of a doubt, the PA agreed to the necessity, urging the swift defeat of Hamas which had violently uprooted Fatah from Gaza.

But when this information became public, the PA was quick to denounce it as a blatant lie, and to announce that it planned to react to the genocidal-intending Israeli move on Hamas in Gaza by unilaterally withdrawing from the then-ongoing peace talks.

When Mahmoud Abbas claimed that Al Jazeera deliberately confused the Palestinian and Israeli positions, he correctly diagnosed the situation, as well he might, and to little avail. "We don't have anything to hide, and I reiterate that Al Jazeera's information is full of distortions and fraud", fumed Saeb Erakat.

Quite so. And now?