Palestinians not suprised by leaks
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Jerusalem: Leaked documents showing Palestinian negotiators offered to cede large parts of east Jerusalem to Israel in 2008 contain no real surprises, Palestinians in Old City told AFP on Monday.
The cache of more than 1,600 secret documents detailing peace negotiations going back to 1999, have made headlines around the world and put the Palestinian leadership on the back foot.
The documents, the first of which were published on Sunday evening by Al-Jazeera, show Palestinian negotiators offered an unprecedented amount of Arab east Jerusalem to Israel during peace talks.
Although the revelations have proved embarrassing for the Palestinian leadership, they did not surprise many in Jerusalem's Old City.
"What Al-Jazeera put out is not new, we've known it for a long time," said 60-year-old Abed Dandis who runs a grocery store the Old City.
But he expressed some dismay at the scope of the apparent concessions offered in 2008, in which Palestinian negotiators suggested Israel could keep all but one of the Jewish settlement neighbourhoods in east Jerusalem.
"I understand that in negotiations you have to make concessions in order to get something, but we are presenting concessions without getting anything in return," he told AFP.
Robeen Abu Rumeilah, the owner of a small shop nearby, agreed the documents did not contain anything earthshattering.
"The Israelis want to take everything, and they don't want to leave anything for us," he said.
"It's enough that the Jewish Quarter (in the Old City) - 90 per cent of which is an Islamic waqf (heritage site) - will be theirs," he said.
"If everything is theirs, then there won't be anything left in Jerusalem for us."
Rami Kostiro, a cellphone salesman, said Al-Jazeera's 'revelations' simply fleshed out what the Palestinian already suspected about the talks.
"We've known about this for a long time but this added new details," he told AFP.
He called on Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat to make good on an apparent pledge to publish internal documents on negotiations with Israel.
"Let him do it, if the Palestinian Authority has nothing to hide," he said.
Erakat and other Palestinian officials reacted with anger and astonishment to the publication of the documents, with the chief negotiator saying the files contained unspecified inaccuracies and falsehoods.
Speaking to AFP from Cairo, where he was accompanying president Mahmud Abbas for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Erakat said the documents were taken 'out of context and contain lies'.
"We don't have anything to hide, and I reiterate that Al-Jazeera's information is full of distortions and fraud."
Maha Sherif, a Palestinian housewife shopping in the Old City, said she thought the documents might be fakes.
"Nothing is too far-fetched to be the work of Israel," she said, adding that the Jewish state would do anything to 'to hurt the Palestinian people and the Palestinian Authority'.
"I think the Palestinian Authority will publish the documents," she said.
"It has to demonstrate to people clearly what the truth is."
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