JERUSALEM — Palestinian negotiators secretly offered to hand over almost all of East Jerusalem to Israel, according to leaked documents that show Palestinians offering much bigger peace concessions than previously revealed. The documents, obtained by the Al Jazeera television channel, could undermine the position of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, whose public declarations about Jerusalem are at odds with what his officials were promising in private. Equally sobering for the Palestinian people, who want to create a state on land Israel seized in a 1967 war, is the fact that Israel offered nothing in return for the concessions and turned down their offer, saying it did not go far enough. The leaked minutes of a 2008 meeting between Palestinian, U.S. and Israeli officials showed a senior Palestinian proposing that Israel annex all but one of its major Jerusalem settlements as part of a broad deal to end their decades-old conflict. The leaked documents also showed that Palestinian negotiators suggested creating a joint committee to oversee Haram al-Sharif, or Temple Mount, holy sites in Jerusalem, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported. The paper had early access to the documents and said it had verified most of them.
