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Saeb Erekat, Palestinian negotiator, dies

JERUSALEM — Saeb Erekat, 65, the Palestinian peace negotiator died Nov. 10 at Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, where he was in the care of Israeli physicians.

Saeb Erekat pictured in Ramallah, West Bank on Sept. 6, 2003. (Paula Bronstein/ Getty)

He had been hospitalized with the coronavirus since last month in what the Palestinian Authority called “the 1948 areas,” refusing to articulate the existence of Israel.

Erekat received a lung transplant in 2017, heightening his risk of COVID-19 complications.

Erekat’s was the deputy head of the Palestinian delegation at the 1991 Madrid talks convened by President George H. W. Bush, the first time Israeli government officials negotiated directly with Palestinian counterparts, albeit in a multilateral setting.

He became the chief Palestinian negotiator once the Oslo peace talks were underway in 1993 and with a few absences stayed in that position throughout his life.

He also was secretary-general of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

Erekat, a political science PhD, was educated in the US and England. He announced his resignation as top negotiator multiple times but never left the job.

He could infuriate Israelis, accusing the country of practicing apartheid and misrepresenting as a massacre a battle in Jenin during the Second Intifada.

But he maintained friendships with Israeli and Jewish interlocutors, earning him their well-wishes after his hospitalization and their condolences after he died.

“Saeb dedicated his life to his people,” said Tzipi Livni, whose negotiations with Erekat during the 2007-2008 Annapolis talks, when she was the Israeli foreign minister, often devolved into shouting and recrimination.

“Reaching peace is my destiny he used to say,” she said on Twitter. “Being sick, he texted me: ‘I’m not finished with what I was born to do.’ My deepest condolences to the Palestinians and his family.”

Erekat publicly mourned Yitzhak Rabin after a Jewish extremist assassinated the Israeli prime minister in 1995 and wept when a reporter informed him that Rabin was killed.

He would gently remonstrate with pro-Palestinian activists who blamed Israel alone for the impasse, saying that the Palestinian leadership had also missed opportunities.

Erekat endeavored to form close ties with the top Trump administration peace brokers, and welcomed them to his hospital room when he underwent a lung transplant in Washington three years ago.

But relations turned bitter after President Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, and the Trump administration cut funds to the Palestinian Authority because it paid salaries to families of Palestinian terrorists.

In 2018, Erekat engaged in a battle of personal insults with Trump’s top negotiator, Jason Greenblatt.

Greenblatt, who has now returned to private life, expressed condolences on Twitter. “Saeb and I were worlds apart in our views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, its history, and how to resolve it,” he said. “But he tried hard to represent his people. Wishing his family much comfort /strength during this difficult time.”

Erekat remained committed to the two-state solution, tweeting out a video reiterating PLO backing for the outcome weeks ago — albeit in the form of an attack on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In September he took on a position at Harvard, as a fellow on the university’s Future of Diplomacy project.

Erekat was optimistic even after the collapse in August, 2000 of the Camp David talks. He said Israel’s agreement in those talks to discuss final status borders, land swaps and the sharing of Jerusalem was a game-changer.

“I don’t think our negotiations will ever be the same after Camp David,” Erekat said at the time, envisioning a return to talks within weeks, and a deal before the Clinton presidency was done.

However, negotiations collapsed within months with the Palestinain launch of the Second Intifada.

Its years of killings of Israeli civilians sowed deep mistrust.

But Erekat, undaunted, was back at it in 2007 at the Annapolis talks, in 2013 at the Obama administration-brokered talks and in 2017 at the Trump talks.

The IJN edited this report.




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