The documents released by WikiLeaks continue to be disseminated around the world, providing the public with an unprecedented glimpse into U.S. diplomacy. Some of the information cited in the documents was direct, open and damaging even if the U.S. continues to question the legitimacy of the leak.

The 250,000 U.S. Embassy diplomatic cables reveal communications between 274 embassies in countries around the world and the U.S. State Department, effectively impacting the entire world and the Middle East is no exception.

Many Arab state-run media outlets have been skeptical in their coverage of the cables. Some chose to focus on issues unrelated to their country while others opted to undermine the implications of the leak.

Tarek al-Homayad, editor-in-chief of al-Sharq al-Awsat, a leading Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily, portrayed the leaks as a crisis for America, but called into question the accuracy and relevance of the reports:  “We must take care that not everything written by the American embassies is fact. Some contain analysis and reporting while the rest merely express points of view, not actual policies.”

The documents prompted the two main Palestinian rivals, Hamas and Fatah, to exchange accusations and blame, especially in regard to the recognition of Israel.

Wasn’t recognizing Israel part of the negotiation process?  So why is it now a major issue? It seems that each faction is trying to undermine the other in a bid to rally public support and avoid accountability.

The next revelation, however, didn’t only come as a shock to Palestinians, but raised concern over the credibility of their leadership in Ramallah.  Among the documents was a claim by Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak that Israel consulted Egypt and the Palestinian Authority (PA) before launching its Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Barak is quoted in the cable saying both Egyptian and PA officials rejected offers to assume control of Gaza after Hamas’ defeat.

Would the PA have conspired with Israel had it known that more than 1,400 Gazans, mostly civilians, would be killed in the three-month armed conflict? If this is the case, shouldn’t the PA be held accountable, along with Israel, and perhaps face war crimes charges?

This revelation, if accurate, does not only indict the PA. It seems that Egypt also played a conspirator role in the war on Hamas. In a meeting with U.S. General David Petraeus in the summer of 2009, Egyptian Security Chief Omar Suleiman complained that neither the ‘Hamas terrorist organization,’ nor Fatah really want to reconcile. Suleiman said his country cooperates with Israel in its effort to prevent ‘arms smuggling and money into Gaza.’

Egypt has been playing the role of mediator between Fatah and Hamas since the latter’s violent takeover of Gaza more than three years ago.

Nearly two months ago, the two Palestinian rivals agreed to take the required steps to end their division, share power and vowed to hold more talks before signing a final deal in Cairo. 

Now with the WikiLeaks revelations, which raise questions about Cairo’s role as an honest peace broker, Hamas and Fatah may have to find another sponsor or it may be time for the Palestinians to assume responsibility and solve their own problems.

The 251,287 cables that have been published are filled with juicy gossip. The repercussions of the recent leaks on world diplomacy remain undetermined, but we can be certain the damage they caused Palestinian reconciliation is irreversible.

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The dreaded "A-Word" has once again made its way into Israeli media, not by a leftist "self-hating Jew", but by a prominent Israeli politician, the Minister of Defense, who is a decorated soldier and a former prime minister as well. "A" is for Apartheid.

An awful word that evokes awful memories, presumably left behind in the annals of history in places such as Soweto and Cape Town. A word that has invited rage, insults, and attacks against a former US president who received a Nobel Peace Prize.

This past Tuesday, however, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that if Israel does not achieve a peace deal with the Palestinians, it will have to become a binational state or be an undemocratic apartheid one if it remains as it is.

"The simple truth is, if there is one state" including Israel, the West Bank and Gaza, "it will have to be either binational or undemocratic. ... if this bloc of millions of Palestinians cannot vote, that will be an apartheid state," Barak said at the Herzliya Conference north of Tel Aviv.

Though rarely used by Israeli leaders in connection to the Palestinians, the term "apartheid" is becoming more common to describe the current reality on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.

More than two years ago, on the anniversary of the 1947 UN partition plan that would have divided British mandate Palestine into a Jewish and an Arab state, then Prime Minister Ehud Olmert warned of this same scenario. In an interview with the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz, Ehud Olmert said Israel was "finished" if it forced the Palestinians into a struggle for equal rights.

If the two-state solution collapsed, he said, Israel would "face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished".

But veteran Israeli journalist David Michaelis believes that a South African-style apartheid system has already emerged due to Israel's prolonged occupation of Palestinian territories.

"What Ehud Barak intended to do is to send a stark warning that Israel is heading towards a binational situation; however, we are already in a binational situation, and an apartheid system that's working very well for the Israeli military and government."

Five years ago David Michaelis and I jointly interviewed Palestinians and Israelis about the prospect of a binational state. Most Palestinians we spoke to then were thinking of independence and most Israelis were thinking of separation. At the time, the Israeli government was frantically building the Separation Wall, and only a handful of Israelis entertained the idea of binational coexistence. One such person we interviewed who predicted what Ehud Barak is currently cautioning of was Meron Benvenisti, a former Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem.

Benvenisti has recently published an elaborate article in Ha'aretz chronicling how Israel became a de facto binational regime.

"The attempt to mark the settlements, and the settlers, as the major impediment to peace is a convenient alibi, obfuscating the involvement of the entire Israeli body politic in maintaining and expanding the regime of coercion and discrimination in the occupied territories, and benefiting from it," he argued.

According to him, the violent events of the (second) intifada brought the Jewish-Israeli public to a crossroads in relation to their neighbors-enemies. Benvenisti argues that Israeli-Jews turned their backs on the Palestinians, erasing them from their consciousness and imprisoning them behind impenetrable walls, and became willing to congregate in a ghetto and pray that the Mediterranean might dry up or a bridge be built to connect them with Europe.

"This mentality is manifested in two, recently constructed, architectural monuments whose symbolism transcends their functional value: The gigantic Separation Wall and the colossal Ben Gurion air terminal. The former is meant to hide the Palestinians and erase them from Israeli consciousness and the latter serves as an escape gateway."

David Michaelis concurs and believes that most Israelis prefer to live in denial and avoid the subject of apartheid.

"The peace process is a misnomer, and the word occupation is misleading because it's really about systematic control."

How long can Israelis live in this denial and pretend that apartheid-like conditions do not exist?

Well you've heard the expression, "If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck..."

Article first published on the Huffington Post

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