Letter to The Washington Post

Dear Editor,

Palestinians react angrily to al-Jazeera's 'Palestine Papers' (1/25/11) states that Palestinians were willing to exchange core Palestinian positions for "little from Israel, analysts said Monday." But The Washington Post didn’t say who the "analysts" were? Why keep their names a secret?

Perhaps one of them is Ed Abington who said "what's most damaging in the newly released documents is the way Palestinian negotiators are "seen as conceding more and more" while getting "absolutely nothing from Israeli negotiators." The Post describes Abington as "a former U.S. consul general in Jerusalem and longtime American diplomat, but doesn’t mention that after he left this post he was hired as political counsel to the Palestinian Authority. Clearly he is not a disinterested party, though that it is how he was presented in the article.

As to the Post's “analysis”, Israel has offered on more than one occasion approximately 95% of the West Bank plus 5% of other lands to get to almost 100% of what the Palestinians want. What side of a negotiation, especially the losing side in war, can hope for more? Would the Kurds, the Chechens, or numerous other minority groups who want a country of their own view the Palestinian position as getting “little?” I think not.

Michael Berenhaus