Israeli report: Secret backchannel communications between the PA and Israel

An Israeli report has revealed that the Palestinian Authority (PA) and Israel held secret talks between 2010 and 2014 and this backchannel was used in conjunction with the negotiations sponsored by US Secretary of State John Kerry, according to Arabs48 news website.

Citing a report by Israel’s Walla! news website, Arabs48 said that Yitzhak Molcho, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attorney and point man for negotiations, secretly communicated during that time with an individual close to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. The report claimed that the talks resulted in a “number of agreements”, but it was later apparent that neither Netanyahu nor Abbas were committed to them, ultimately breeding “more anger and frustration”.

In addition, the report noted that the identity of the Palestinian official remained secret “in order to preserve his safety” and that Molcho first met with him in 2010, after which they continued having meetings. The discussions took place in a European capital every few weeks and a small number of Israelis, Palestinians and Americans were aware of these communications, with former US Ambassador Dennis Ross playing a role. Ross was an advisor to US President Barack Obama for Israeli policy affairs until 2011.

Molcho and the Palestinian official reportedly “discussed the possibility of forming a document of Palestinian-Israeli understandings based on Israel’s recognition of the 1967 borders with a land swap, in exchange for the PA to be more lenient in its position on Israel’s identity as a Jewish state as long as it does not affect the rights of Arab citizens.”

The Walla! report also stated that in 2013, after the secret discussions had ended, they were restored once again when Kerry took the initiative to restart the official negotiations between Israel and the PA.

But although the secret meetings made some progress at the beginning of 2014, it became apparent that Abbas was rejecting the positions proposed by his Palestinian associate in the talks, while Netanyahu still had his own reservations on some matters. The report concluded that the secret channel ultimately caused more harm than good.

It is worth noting that the PA denied the existence of any secret channel of communications with Israel after a report was published in Yedioth Ahronoth last year.