Last night, Aljazeera released documents revealing important secrets about the Palestinian-Israeli peace negotiations. While I believe this unprecedented revelation (more in terms of its details but not so much the substance of its accusations) to be quite useful, I think its timing was poorly planned. It is painful to see how low Fatah has stooped conceding too much to an Israeli side that is clearly not interested in making peace and only concerned about acquiring more land. Saeb Erakat, the Palestinian chief negotiator, was desperately defensive on Al-Jazeera Arabic this morning. These secret documents make him appear like a weak and defenseless negotiator always willing to concede more (including all East Jerusalem) in exchange for almost nothing from the Israelis. These documents also paint an equally unfavorable image of the Israelis and the Americans, by the way. I understand the severity of these revelations and their formidable newsworthiness. I'm just conflicted about their timing given the fact that Aljazeera has had these documents for quite some time. Why now? Why at this particular moment when Arab regimes fear a collective uprising of their populations following the events of Tunisia in the last few weeks? There is a notorious history of how these regimes have used the tragedy of Palestinians to deflect attention from their own domestic failings. I don't mean to suggest that Aljazeera is following the orders of some Arab leader(s) to take the attention sting away from them, but the release of these documents may break the momentum of the Arab street as more mass protests are called for in Algeria, Egypt and the Yemen. Already on Aljazeera, the Tunisian revolt is taking second stage as more secrets are revealed from the Palestinian papers. One could also argue that these documents could serve to further reinforce a popular Arab feeling these days: their impatience and lack of confidence in their leaders, including those with no state like the Palestinians.

What I deplore in Aljazeera's poor timing is this: for once a successful (remains to be seen) Arab uprising (in Tunisia) was orchestrated from within and it was all about equal opportunity, employment and the right to free expression, but now Aljazeera brings in the same issue that has been used to eclipse Arabs' fundamental rights. I don't mean that the Palestinian struggle is irrelevant or unimportant, but once again it will be used as a decoy to talk about the perennial issue that flares up lots of tempers but never gets resolved. We all knew in a sense the doomed failure of the peace process and there have been multiple reminders of that along the way. It's true the details in these documents are quite graphic about the motives of an enfeebled Fatah party and the mendacity of the Israelis, but this could have waited without undermining the newsworthiness or the timeliness of this important release.