Most of the PLO leadership reacted to the revelations on Al Jazeera and in the Guardian as if they had been caught red-handed. They claim that Qatar is behind the papers which document Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in recent years, that it is an attempt to overthrow the president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, that they are inaccurate and taken out of context. They are boycotting Al Jazeera, and youths surround the station's offices in Ramallah threatening them.

A political earthquake has been shaking the Palestinian territories since the release of the secret memos.

Al Jazeera and Hamas have accused the PA and Mahmoud Abbas of treason. In return, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said that all the documents that had been published over the past three days "are forged and we don't know who stands behind it".

The leaked documents appeared to show that the Palestinian negotiators agreed to hand Israel control of neighbourhoods in east Jerusalem, accept Israel as a Jewish state and give up calling for the right of return.

Whatever we may think of the new journalistic trend of scoop by information-dump, the leaking of hundreds of documents from negotiations between the Palestinian and Israeli negotiators is an extraordinary event. We are all better informed as a result.

"The evil thing that they perpetrated has come back at them," Moses's father-in-law Jethro rejoiced in last week's sedra. With luck, and some serious statesmanship, that could yet be the outcome of the evil thing perpetrated by Al Jazeera this week against the prospect of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

Plainly, the skewed spin that Al Jazeera (and - how terribly sad to say so - its accessory, the Guardian) put on selectively leaked diplomatic documents from 10 years of failed peacemaking was intended to poison the Palestinians against their leaders.

It didn't happen.

A top Hamas representative has used a British newspaper to threaten action as an “immediate response” to the release of the Palestine papers.

Writing in the Guardian today, Osama Hamdan, described as the head of the Hamas international relations department, said a series of meetings have begun to “discuss practical measures”.