Al Jazeera just droppped an A-bomb on the Middle East

The Arab-world-based news service uncovered a treasure trove of leaked documents about Israeli-Palestinian negotiations and exclusively shared them with the Guardian. (Here's the link to the al Jazeera main webpage for the coverage, to make sure it gets its due.)

An Al Jazeera explainer page notes what's behind the papers:

There are 1,684 total documents, including
* 275 sets of meeting minutes;
* 690 internal e-mails;
* 153 reports and studies;
* 134 sets of talking points and prep notes for meetings;
* 64 draft agreements;
* 54 maps, charts and graphs;
* and 51 “non-papers.”

Among the bombshells, in numerous sublinks at the Guardian?

Israeli intransigence on negotiations, U.S. acquiescence, and Palestinian desperation.

In an emotional – and apparently humiliating – outburst to Barack Obama's Middle East envoy, George Mitchell, in Washington in October 2009, the senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat complained that the Ramallah-based Palestinian leadership wasn't even being offered a "figleaf". ...

(W)hen Palestinian leaders balked at the prospect of an entirely demilitarised state, Livni made clear where the negotiating power lay. In May 2008, Erekat asked (Tzipi Livni, Israel's foreign minister): "Short of your jet fighters in my sky and your army on my territory, can I choose where I secure external defence?"

"No," Livni replied. "In order to create your state you have to agree in advance with Israel – you choose not to have the right of choice afterwards."

By the following year, Erekat appeared to have accepted that choice. "The Palestinians know they will have a country with limitations," he told Mitchell. "They won't have an army, air force or navy." A string of other major concessions had been made, but the issues were no further forward. "They need decisions," Erekat pleaded.

Wow. A demilitarized Palestine.

Israeli annexation of most East Jerusalem settlements.

There's more. Go to the main link, the first one up top, and start reading.

If I'm Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, I'm not walking anywhere now without a bulletproof vest. And, no, that's not too hyperbolic. Plenty of people at various spots in the Hamas food chain would surely be willing to pull a trigger.

Beyond that, this undermines plenty of actors beyond the Palestinian Authority.

Livni is now head of the opposition Kadima Party. Whenever it gets into power again, she'll be no more trusted by Palestinians outside the PA than Bibi Netanyahu is now.

Given that American acquiescence to Israeli intransigence carried over into the Obama Administration, it loses credibility.

And, to the degree more moderate Arab governments are seen has having thrown their collective lot with the PA rather than Hamas, to the degree either further al Jazeera information or WikiLeaks cables shed any light on this, they lose credibility too.

A couple of other thoughts, too.

The cui bono question is running through my head, mainly.

Yes, we know that WikiLeaks had the U.S. diplomatic cables, but the al-Jazeera leak is separate. So, who gave it what it got and why? And, how did that person come into the info, if he or she isn't an insider?

Would this benefit an Israeli ultrahawk like Avigdor Lieberman? By deliberately sabotaging future talks, which it will?

Or, somebody from Hamas? Though it would be tough for anybody from Hamas to have gotten such detailed information.

Or, either a rival to Abbas for leadership within the PA, or a principled PA negotiator who finally had had enough?

Meanwhile, Team Obama threatened to cut off funds to the Palestinian Authority if it replaced Mahmoud Abbas as leader.

This would be the same Abbas whose negotiating team, in private, officially accepted that Israel could define itself as a Jewish state.

This all further impinges on the "who benefits" issue.

And, was this leak, whoever did it, already planned before the WikiLeaks release of the U.S. cables or not?

Who doesn't benefit? Per one al Jazeera piece, everyday Palestinians, likely to see further Israeli intimidation and violence.