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.”
