Is Tzipi Livni A Truth-teller? Maybe Not

It's being reported

Ahmed Quriea...said no to officially accepting that yet another 6.8 percent of the West Bank would permanently be taken into Israeli boundaries. Most of historic Palestine is now Israel, with the West Bank just a fraction of it once was...An Israeli official responded in the AFP on condition of anonymity today by saying, “These statements are not accurate.”

He was referring to Quriea’s quote of 6.8 percent and turned the phrase to suggest the Israelis were giving something up. “The Palestinians rejected the offer of the Israelis to withdraw from 93 percent of the West Bank.”...The unnamed official said the position of outgoing Israeli Prime Minister remains as it did in September when he said he would withdraw from all territory occupied in 1967...Qureia told a Ramallah press conference that this too was rejected because the Israelis offered it as an exchange for the return of 5,000 Palestinian refugees to the homes they were forced from in 1948. Under international law and United Nations resolutions all refugees have the right of return. UN Resolution 194 is an individual and collective right that no one can negotiate away.

The seven percent of the West Bank that the Israelis say they will keep encompasses the major settlement blocs inhabited by approximately 300,000 Jewish settlers that surround Jerusalem.

and in the shorter version:

Israel proposed to annex 6.8 percent of the West Bank and to take in a few thousand refugees under a peace deal, but it has not revealed its position on the most contentious issue — the future of Jerusalem, the chief Palestinian negotiators said Friday night...Qureia told Palestinian reporters that Israel wants to keep four blocs of Jewish settlements in the West Bank — Ariel, Maaleh Adumim, Givat Zeev and Efrat-Gush Etzion...Israel offered to give some of its own territory as compensation, but not an equal trade in size and quality...Qureia said Olmert's offer during talks to take in 5,000 Palestinian refugees over five years was rejected..."To say that not a single refugee would be allowed back or that all the refugees should be allowed back is not a solution," he said. "We should reach a mutual position on this issue."

The Likud was quick to react, saying that this suggestion of 5000 per year is even more extreme a policy than most of the Left-wing in Israel that refuses to acknowledge the "right of return".

Funny, if he's truthful, what can we say about Tzipi Livni who was quoted last month:

Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni Wednesday said that Palestinian refugees have no right to return to Israel due to the state's Jewish nature

And in greater detail:-

I am thinking about the ultimate goal of the State of Israel and upholding Israel’s values as a Jewish and democratic state...I believe that our responsibility is to work in accordance with Israeli interests, and Israeli interests are to try to translate the vision into two states for two people living side by side in peace and security...But two nation states in which Israel is the Jewish state and the other state is the answer, the full answer, to the aspirations of the Palestinians and it means that there will be no refugees coming into Israel.

Was Tzipi lying about no refugees, whereas Abu Alla says the number 5000 was offered or was she simply out of the loop?


P.S.

You notice above that Abu Alla said:

Most of historic Palestine is now Israel

Actually, "Palestine" only came into being when the British drew its artificial boundaries and then awarded Abdallah 75% of that territory in 1922. If there are any "historic" boundaries, they are the Jewish borders of the Land of Israel.

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Addendum

On May 30, 2003 it was reported:

Erekat rejects calls to drop Palestinian refugees' right of return

GAZA, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Former Palestinian chief negotiator and legislature Saeb Erekat said Friday that the Palestinians would never drop their legitimate right of return, adding that the question of refugees and their right of return would be discussed between Israel and the Palestinians by the year 2004.

Erekat's remarks came after Martin Indyk, the former US ambassador to Israel, said that the Palestinians should drop the right of return to their lands they had left in 1948.

This came on the background of this:

[Ehud] Barak apparently did go far beyond his opening positions at Camp David. He agreed to recognize a Palestinian state...He broke the Israeli taboo on negotiating over Jerusalem and talked about...a Palestinian flag flying over the Noble Sanctuary/Temple Mount, though Israeli sovereignty over the entire city would remain. He agreed to the resettlement of some 100,000 Palestinian refugees inside Israel proper in the framework of a family unification program, and to Israeli participation in an international fund to compensate the 4-5 million other refugees. Certainly, no other Israeli leader has gone this far.