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Leaked Revelations: Palestinian Leadership Accepts Most Israeli Settlements
(Robin Shepherd) Robin Shepherd - The uncompromising message that comes out of the revelations on Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations is that the Palestinian leadership itself has long accepted that the vast majority of Israeli settlements can be considered legitimate and would become part of Israel under any reasonable peace agreement. This shows that everyone from the British Foreign Office and the BBC to the European Commission have been adopting a position which was significantly more uncompromising on "settlements" than the Palestinian leadership itself, and also that that same Palestinian leadership had accepted that the so-called 1967 "borders" - the gold standard for practically every anti-Israeli polemic around - are irrelevant to the prospects of a lasting peace. Privately and morally, senior Palestinians can see that there is nothing illegitimate or even especially problematic about most of the "settlements." But publicly and politically they cannot sell such concessions to their own people. The writer is Director, International Affairs at the Henry Jackson Society in London.