Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat passed away due to complications from the novel coronavirus at the age of 65 on Tuesday, November 10, 2020.
He had been receiving treatment at Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem since his medical condition deteriorated in mid-October.
Erekat first came into prominence in 1991, when he was appointed deputy head of the Palestinian negotiating delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference.
Born on 1955 in the village of Abu Dis, south of Jerusalem, Erekat later played an active role in the peace talks with Israel in 1992 and 1993, when the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the PLO.
He was one of the few local Palestinian leaders who never spent a day in Israeli prison for terror-related offences.
After the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in 1994, former PLO leader Yasser Arafat appointed Erekat as head of the Palestinian negotiating team with Israel.
Erekat was appointed to the senior position although, unlike most of the PLO leaders, he grew up and lived all his life in the West Bank. His appointment surprised several PLO officials who returned to the West Bank and Gaza Strip with Arafat after the signing of the Oslo Accords. These officials did not understand why Arafat chose a “local” Palestinian official to such an important and influential job.
Until 1991, most Palestinians had hardly heard of Erekat, who worked as a political science professor at An-Najah University in Nablus.
In addition to his academic job, Erekat also served as a regular columnist for the east Jerusalem newspaper Al-Quds. Although he lived in Jericho, Erekat spent much of his time in east Jerusalem, where he worked at the newspaper offices and held regular meetings with Palestinian and foreign journalists, as well as diplomats from around the world.
Between 1994 and 2003, he served as the first Palestinian Authority Minister for Local Government.
It was in 1996 that he became known as Chief Palestinian Negotiator. In the same year, he was elected as a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council in the first Palestinian parliamentary election.
Erekat was considered one of Arafat’s most trusted advisers. He accompanied Arafat to almost all meetings he had with world leaders and participated in the botched Camp David Summit in 2000.
Palestinians said that Arafat was so fond of Erekat’s negotiating skills, sharpness and articulation that he sometimes jokingly referred to him as the “devil from Jericho.”
After Arafat’s death in November 2004, Erekat became one of Abbas’s closest confidants and advisers. In February 2005, Erekat was appointed as head of the PLO Negotiating Department.
He was again elected as a member of the Palestine Legislative Council in the 2006 parliamentary election, which resulted in a Hamas victory. Erekat was elected as a representative of the Jericho district, where he lived until his last days.
Over the past decade, Erekat became a senior member of the PLO Executive Committee and the Fatah Central Council – two key decision-making Palestinian institutions.
In 2011, Erekat submitted his resignation as head of the PLO Negotiations Department after documents were leaked from his office to the Qatari-owned Al-Jazeera network. The documents allegedly showed that Erekat was prepared to make far-reaching concessions to Israel on sensitive issues such as Jerusalem and the status of the Temple Mount, or the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound. Erekat, who denied the allegations, later withdrew his resignation.
In 2015, he replaced Yasser Abed Rabbo as Secretary-General of the PLO – a position he held until his death.
Unlike several veteran PLO officials, Erekat’s name was never linked to financial corruption in the PA. Those who knew him and worked with him said he and his family led a modest life.
Although he was a harsh critic of Israel and a “relentless” negotiator, he managed to attract a large number of friends in Israel and other countries around the world.
Many Israeli and foreign journalists also found it comfortable to deal with Erekat, who rarely turned down a request for an interview. He was one of the few Palestinian officials who continued to talk to the Israeli media despite calls by various Palestinian groups for boycotting Israeli journalists.
Erekat’s frequent appearances in the Israeli and international media turned him into the No 1 spokesman of the Palestinians. He was among the first Palestinian officials to comment on various events related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. His statements often reflected the official position of the PLO and Fatah, forcing other officials to follow suit.
Erekat was the author of at least eight books, some of which dealt with his experiences as a veteran negotiator with Israel. One of his books, “Life is Negotiations,” was dedicated to university students and all those interested in diplomacy and negotiations.
Although he never talked about it in public, Erekat considered himself a leading candidate to succeed Abbas. In private conversations, Erekat used to ask friends and journalists whether they thought he was qualified to become the next president of the Palestinians.
His chances of succeeding Abbas, however, suffered a major setback when Erekat underwent a lung transplant in the US three years ago. Since then, his health condition forced him to limit his activities to a certain extent.
Erekat was one of the staunch critics of the Trump administration, especially it’s perceived “bias” in favor of Israel. He also spearheaded the Palestinian campaign to foil Trump’s “Peace to Prosperity,” also known as the Deal of the Century. In the past four years, Erekat was often quoted as saying that the two-state solution was no longer viable because of Israeli and US policies.
Recently, he criticized the normalization agreements between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. However, Erekat urged Palestinians not to “harm” symbols and leaders of Arab countries by burning their flags and pictures.
In the past few weeks, Erekat suddenly became active on his Twitter account when he started replying to his critics, especially Arabs from the Gulf states who launched a scathing attack on the Palestinian leadership. His criticism of the normalization agreements placed him on a course of collision with the Arab League and many people in the Gulf states, particularly after he talked about the emergence of “Zionist Arabs.”
After he announced in early October that he had contracted the coronavirus, Erekat seemed to be touched by the fact that many Israelis and Jews around the world, including some of his staunch critics, were wishing him a speedy recovery. He replied to almost each one of those who wished him well.
It’s unlikely that Erekat’s departure from the Palestinian political arena would lead to a change in the Palestinian policy toward Israel and the peace process. The Palestinians may have lost one of their most experienced negotiators, but Erekat’s political statements and positions will continue to reverberate around the room, if and when the peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians resume.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
