The Palestine papers have broken a taboo. Now the arguments for peace can be open
The response to the papers shows why information belongs in the daylight – in the Middle East no less than anywhere else
Critics of the publication of the Palestine papers by the Guardian and al-Jazeera are aiming their fire in several directions. They have variously claimed that the documents are fake; that they are partial; that they reveal nothing new; that they should never have been published; and that they help Hamas, damage the peace process and threaten to destroy the two-state solution.
Let's start with the silliest first: the claim of forgery, casting these papers as the Hitler Diaries of the Middle East. That was swiftly swept aside today by Nabil Shaath, a former member of the Palestinian negotiation team who, along with several others close to the talks, vouched for the documents' authenticity. Are they partial? Only in the sense that 1,600 pages out of tens of thousands could always be described as incomplete. Some have complained that the documents only provide the view from the Palestinian side of the negotiating table. But they purport to do nothing else. To suggest that makes them unsuitable for publication is to suggest the New York Times should never have published the Pentagon Papers without an equivalent stash of paperwork from the North Vietnamese defence ministry.
But clearly, say the critics, these were leaked by someone with an agenda. I don't know the identity of the source for the Palestine papers, but I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't have a purpose for their actions. That is true of every leak through recorded time. Should the Daily Telegraph not have published Liam Fox's letter protesting over defence cuts last autumn because the leaker of that letter clearly had a political objective? Of course not. Observe that standard and we'd never know anything. Besides, readers can usually put two and two together.
Still, say some complainers, these papers don't reveal anything we didn't know. Indeed, they are "incredibly boring", according to Noah Pollak of Commentary magazine – so boring that they warrant six separate pieces on the magazine's website.
Joining the "nothing new" chorus is Benny Morris, eager to pour cold water on the revelation that the Palestinians were ready to concede areas of East Jerusalem settled by Jews. Didn't the Guardian remember that those very areas were conceded back in 2000 as part of the "Clinton parameters" that followed the Camp David negotiations? But it's Morris who's suffering memory loss here. Surely he recalls the claim, repeated endlessly, that Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians had rejected those 2000 terms. He should remember: after all, Morris was one of the lead disseminators of that message. If Palestinians now accept what they once rejected, that's news.
What of the graver charge that the Guardian had no business publishing papers whose exposure could discredit the Palestinian leadership and thereby damage, even destroy, the peace process? This is not a question confined to the wilder shores of the rightwing blogosphere. In a round of media interviews, I was asked by one mainstream journalist: "How does the Guardian feel about putting a gun to the head of the two-state solution?"This touches on the argument rehearsed so fiercely during the WikiLeaks furore. It is that once an organisation has been handed information like this, it either publishes it or it suppresses it. Those are the options. Which is why no news organisation worthy of the name would hesitate to release a trove of documents of this kind.
Only in the rarest exceptions – where there is a direct risk to a named individual's life – should journalists withhold such information from their readers or viewers. (Indeed, to protect certain individuals some documents have been redacted by both the Guardian and al-Jazeera.) Of course publication will have political consequences, even awkward ones. But that cannot be for journalists and editors to decide: their job is to find out what is happening and report it, as best they can. The consequences are for others to manage. It has to be that way, otherwise newspapers would never publish anything: somebody in power would always be there to argue that it was best to hold off, that now was not the time. And the public would remain in the dark.
This is particularly true for the Middle East, where there is all too little daylight. Take Tunisia. It may be an exaggeration to call the people's revolt there the "first WikiLeaks revolution", but it's clear that revelations about the luxury lifestyle of the ruling family played a crucial role. Yet when those diplomatic cables were first released, Barack Obama slammed the document dump as "deplorable", while Hillary Clinton branded it an attack on America and the international community.
The point here is that journalists shouldn't be expected to weigh all the possible consequences of publication because the most important can – as in the Tunisia case – be unforeseen. Already there are signs of that with the Palestine papers.The initial assumption of many observers – and perhaps of the leakers themselves – was that the revelation of Palestinian negotiators' willingness to compromise would not just offend Palestinian pride but instantly spark a wave of revulsion, leading to a Tunisia-style revolt against the PA. With the PA gone, the peace process would be over and the two-state solution gone for ever.
That could still happen, especially given the PA's already low standing among its population. But, initially at least, the Palestinian public does not seem to be following the script. One Palestinian insider told me yesterday that some Palestinians suspect a plot against the PA, hatched by al-Jazeera's Qatari paymasters in favour of their Hamas allies. The man in the Ramallah street may have little faith in the PA, but he doesn't relish the Hamas alternative or like outside interference.
What's more, says that senior Palestinian figure, the leak of these papers could do something the PA had failed to do: prepare Palestinian public opinion for the painful concessions that peace will, one distant day, require. This leak has blown apart any pretence that an agreement could come without a heavy price. Now there can be an argument about what precisely a future deal would look like and what it would be worth – an argument in the open.
A similar process happened in Israel after Camp David in 2000, when a leak revealed the prime minister was countenancing the division of Jerusalem. There was sound and fury, but a taboo was broken. This time round the Palestine papers are already having a useful impact in Israel – prompting a clutch of influential figures to realise there is, after all, a partner on the Palestinian side.
So yes, you might not like every word. For the record, I disagreed with the Guardian editorial that described Palestinian concessions as "craven": I prefer to admire the readiness of the Palestinians to move, urging Israelis to do the same. Still, I cannot join those who wish these texts had stayed in the dark.• This article has been launched with comments off. They will be switched on at 9am tomorrow
