Al Jazeera's Palestinian document leaks point up Obama's clueless Mideast peace strategy

For three days running, Al-Jazeera has been pounding the Palestinian Authority with release of hundreds of PA negotiating documents, which showMahmoud Abbas as a two-faced leader -- publicly insisting on getting all of East Jerusalem, including the entire Old City, while privately agreeing to Israel's retention of virtually all Jewish neighborhoods in the eastern sector of Israel's capital. Or as Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat put it to an Israeli interlocutor: "We're giving you the largest Jewish Yerushalaim ever."

With the Palestinians being that flexible and pragmatic about Jerusalem, thequestion arises why, given this progress on the private negotiating track, Obama would, in his first try at Mideast diplomacy, put all his chips on pressuring Israel to institute as the first order of business a permanent building freeze in these same Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem.

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