Salaam
Depressing news :(
Saeb Erekat, the chief negotiator of the Palestinian Authority (PA), had suggested unprecedented compromises on the division of Jerusalem and its holy sites, the Palestine Papers obtained by Al Jazeera show.
Minutes of negotiations at the US State Department in Washington DC indicate that Erekat was willing to concede control over the Haram al-Sharif, or Temple Mount, to the oversight of an international committee.
Related
The highly controversial issue of who controls the Haram al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary), home of the Al Aqsa mosque - Islam’s third holiest site - has been a major sticking point during decades of negotiations between Israelis and the Palestinians.
Israel calls the Haram al-Sharif the “Temple Mount” because Jews believe it was the site of the Second Temple destroyed during Roman times. In recent years, Jewish settler groups – some with close ties to the Israeli government – have advocated building a “Third Temple", which would necessitate the destruction of the existing Muslim holy sites.
The site has often been a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. On October 8, 1990, Israeli forces shot dead 21 Palestinian civilians at the Haram al-Sharif. The Palestinians, whom Israel said were throwing stones at Jewish worshippers at the Western Wall below the Haram, were protesting plans by a settler group called the Temple Mount Faithful to lay a cornerstone for the Third Temple.
Palestinians have accused Israel of trying to undermine the foundations of the al-Aqsa mosque through what Israel describes as archaeological excavations. In September 1996, Israel opened what it called a tourist tunnel along the foundations of the Haram, touching off violence that left dozens of people dead – the vast majority of them Palestinians.
In September 2000, Ariel Sharon, the then-Israeli opposition leader, visited the Haram al-Sharif accompanied by hundreds of armed Israeli police. Palestinian protests at what was seen as a provocation, and Israel’s armed response to them, marked the beginning of the second Palestinian Intifada.
"There are creative ways"
In a meeting on October 21, 2009 with George Mitchell, the US Middle East envoy, David Hale, Mitchell’s deputy, and Jonathan Schwartz, the then-US State Department legal adviser, Erekat told the Americans that they would need a “creative” solution for the division of the Old City.
Erekat: “It’s solved. You have the Clinton Parameters formula. For the Old City sovereignty for Palestine, except the Jewish quarter and part of the Armenian quarter … the Haram can be left to be discussed - there are creative ways, having a body or a committee, having undertakings for example not to dig [excavations under the Al Aqsa mosque]. The only thing I cannot do is convert to Zionism.”
Schwartz: To confirm to Sen. Mitchell, [this is] your private idea …
Erekat: This conversation is in my private capacity.
Schwartz: We’ve heard the idea from others. So you’re not the first to raise it.
Erekat: Others are not the chief negotiator of the PLO.
This was a surprising statement from Erekat: The status of the Haram al-Sharif has rarely been discussed during negotiations.
In a November 2010 interview with Al Jazeera, Saeb Erekat says all occupied territory is the same.
The 2000 Camp David talks marked the first time leaders from both sides bargained directly over the status of occupied East Jerusalem and its holy sites.
International law and the 1967 borders clearly show that the Haram al-Sharif is within the occupied Palestinian territories. Thus the discussion– between Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian president Yasser Arafat – proved highly controversial. Many participants in the talks say that their failure to resolve the status of the Old City's holy sites proved the ultimate deal-killer.
http://english.aljazeera.net/palesti...545946119.html