BICOM

Palestinian Chief Negotiator Saeb Erekat yesterday asserted that British and American citizens were behind the leaks of minutes of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, which were obtained by al-Jazeera and the Guardian newspaper. In a sometimes heated interview with al-Jazeera, the Palestinian chief negotiator, who has been singled out for criticism for supposedly adopting an excessively compromising stance toward Israel, said that the documents were leaked by Clayton Swisher, a current employee of al-Jazeera who, according to reports, previously worked in the Palestinian Authority’s Negotiations Support Unit (NSU). The second individual named by Erekat as responsible for the leaks was British citizen Alastair Crooke, a former British intelligence officer, and former adviser to the EU’s High Representative for the Common Foreign and Security Policy. Crooke, who is now based in Beirut, is a veteran advocate of dialogue and ‘engagement’ with Islamist organisations and is considered by serving British officials to maintain close relations with both Hamas and Hezbollah. Earlier in the week, Erekat said that the leaks on al-Jazeera placed his life at risk.

The leaks are continuing to inflame passions among the Palestinian public – with opinion divided between those who have rallied around the PA and those who oppose it. Both sides have held protests and demonstrations in the last few days. In the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, several thousand Palestinians took part in a demonstration yesterday in which an effigy of PA President Mahmoud Abbas was burned and in mass chants denounced as a traitor. Supporters of the PA, meanwhile, have also rallied in Ramallah in recent days. A large poster denouncing al-Jazeera as a “Zionist” organisation has been placed in Ramallah’s central Manara Square. Armed Palestinians yesterday smashed up the offices of al-Jazeera in Nablus. The dispute has assumed the dimensions of a battle for patriotic legitimacy, with supporters of the PA denouncing Qatar, which founded, finances and hosts al-Jazeera, as working against the Palestinians.