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The secretary of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization and former chief Palestinian negotiator, Saeb Erekat, passed away today after being infected with the coronavirus in early October.
Erekat’s condition had deteriorated and, as a result, he was transferred to an Israeli hospital on the 18th of last month. So who is Saeb Erekat?
Erekat was one of the most prominent Palestinian spokesmen in the Western media during the second intifada, and played a prominent role in the negotiations that resulted from the Oslo agreement between the PLO and Israel, and was the main negotiator from 1995 to 1995. 2004.
His life and career
Saeb Erekat was born in 1955 in the West Bank city of Jericho, and he was the sixth of seven brothers and sisters in a family who hailed from the city of Abu Dis, east of Jerusalem.
After finishing high school in Jericho, he traveled to the United States and obtained a BA and MA in political science from the University of San Francisco in 1979. He then traveled to the UK and obtained his PhD in Peace and Conflict Studies in 1983 from the University of Bradford in the north of England.
After obtaining his doctorate, Erekat returned to the West Bank city of Nablus and worked as a professor of political science at An-Najah National University. He also worked as a journalist for the editorial board of the Palestinian newspaper Al-Quds.
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In 1983, Erekat launched an academic exchange program for dialogue between Palestinian and Israeli scholars, in the belief that negotiations are the only way to end the Arab-Israeli conflict.
In 1991, he became deputy head of the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid conference and followed up on subsequent talks in Washington between 1992 and 1993.
In 1994, he was appointed Minister of Local Government of the Palestinian National Authority and head of the Palestinian negotiating delegation.
In 1995, Erekat was the main Palestinian negotiator during the Oslo negotiations. He was then elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1996, representing Jericho.
After the Palestinian Legislative Council elected Mahmoud Abbas in April 2003 as the first Palestinian Prime Minister, Erekat was appointed to the post of Head of the Department of Negotiations Affairs of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Erekat was considered close to the late president of the Palestine Liberation Organization, Yasser Arafat.
Erekat suffered a heart attack in 2012 and underwent a lung transplant in the United States in 2017.
Jericho devil
Arafat used to call Erekat by this joking name, referring to Erekat’s great ability to maneuver and dominate the “political game” due to his ability to find solutions and positions for the Palestinian problem.
Erekat was respected and admired by many Palestinians, especially President Mahmoud Abbas and the Fatah movement.
When Mahmoud Abbas was nominated for the post of Palestinian prime minister in early 2003, Erekat was slated to be the minister for negotiations in the new government, but he quickly resigned after being excluded from the negotiating delegation. This was interpreted as part of an internal Palestinian power struggle between Abbas and Arafat.
Erekat was subsequently reassigned to his post and participated in the 2007 Annapolis conference.
In 2009, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas appointed him head of the Palestinian delegation. However, he tendered his resignation after the Palestinian Authority investigated the issue of leaking documents for the Middle East peace negotiations, which Al-Jazeera obtained in English in February 2011, and broadcast them on television on the program. “Palestinian Documents” in a series of four documentary episodes in English.
But he soon reversed his decision and retracted his resignation.
In 2006, he was elected to the Central Committee of the Palestinian National Liberation Movement (Fatah), which is the movement’s highest leadership body, and in 2009, he became a member of the Executive Committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization.
Saeb Erekat is the author of nine political books, notably “Al-Hayat Negotiations”, which was published in 2008, and “Between Ali and Rogues” in 2014.