Leading article: One side of the story is illuminated

The publication of confidential documents containing details of what Fatah might be prepared to concede to Israel as the price of creating a Palestinian state caused uproar and embarrassment yesterday. But it was uproar and embarrassment that was largely restricted to the Fatah leadership, revealing as it did the glaring gap between the official pronouncements of its negotiators and what they were actually saying behind closed doors. Officials then compounded the problem with their panicked response, which called into question the authenticity of the documents, while selectively denying what was in them.

The discrepancies in the Palestinians' position appear greatest in relation to those Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem which Palestinian negotiators appeared ready to accept, and the principle of the "right of return", which they appeared willing to forgo. On both counts, the news was bound to be as unwelcome to Palestinians as it would have been welcome to Israelis. Whether it really should have been, however, is a separate question. Any peace agreement is going to require concessions in these two areas, however they are formulated, and there were other points, especially on settlements in the occupied West Bank, where the documents suggested the Palestinian position was tougher. If these documents illuminate anything, it is only one side of the story – and one that was widely assumed, if not actually spelt out.

The two more interesting questions are why the documents were leaked in the first place, and what effect, if any, their publication will have. On the first, the consideration "who benefits?" points to disillusioned individuals in Fatah playing to the anti-Fatah disposition of the Arab TV channel, Al Jazeera, and all those who fear what they would see as a Palestinian "sell-out". As to what happens next, the pessimistic view is that this will set back the prospects for peace even further. A more hopeful perspective is that these revelations do not tell anyone anything they did not, deep down, know already, while demonstrating to sceptical Israelis that Fatah has been, and remains, prepared to negotiate: a grey cloud, in other words, with just a flicker of a silver lining.