On admission to the hospital, he received intensive care, including a heart-lung machine (ECMO) and drug treatment provided by top specialists at Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem, where he had been hospitalized since 18 October.
“Fatah mourns his great national son, Dr. Erect,” reads a social media post by his party Fatah. “The President, the leadership and the government are mourning Dr. Saeb Erekt,” read a banner on Palestinian TV.
“After our father showed extraordinary strength and will, he settled down peacefully, the same determination that characterized his career in achieving the independence of Palestine and justice in our region,” Erekat’s daughter, Dala Iraqat, said in a Facebook post. “And we all order them to respect the rights of the Palestinian people until they achieve freedom and liberty.”
UK Foreign Secretary Dominique Rabe called Erekat a “champion of dialogue and Palestinian rights.”
“I am saddened to hear the news of his tragic death. My thoughts are with his family and the Palestinian people at this difficult time,” Rabe said.
Hanan Ashrawi, a well-known member of the PLO’s executive committee, said Erikat’s death was “a significant transition into the history and reality of Palestine.”
“They are firmly committed to the right of the people to seek judicial peace and to the right to self-determination without any prejudice in the pursuit of their freedom and rights. Stay calm and give strength to my friend,” Ashrawi tweeted.
Former Israeli Foreign Minister Zipporah Livni said Erikat had sent him a message when he was healthy, saying “I am not finished with what I had to do.”
He tweeted, “My deepest condolences to the Palestinians and their families. It will be missed.” Other Israeli officials also praised Irakat. Left Meretz party leader Nietzsche Horowitz reminded that he and the Palestinian negotiators “argued a lot, but despite the frustration with the situation, he never abandoned the two-state solution Israel and Palestine’s return. Peace, peace will be your wish.”
Erdogan, one of the Palestinian politicians of the last few decades, was a major part of the negotiations between Palestinian officials and Israel during the intensive peace process negotiations in the 1990s.
He served as deputy head of the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Conference in 1991, as the administration of President George HW Bush pushed for a resolution to the decades-old Arab-Israeli conflict.
Erekat famously wore a black and white kafia, a Palestinian national emblem, seen as an act of contempt against Israel, which refused to negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). The Israeli negotiating team in Madrid considered him a tough liner, whose appointment alone could stall the talks.
But the Israelis met him constantly and repeatedly in negotiations. In the mid-1990s, when both sides tried to develop the Os Slow Accords, Ericket became the main Palestinian negotiator, a position he will hold until he passes.
He became a familiar face, with a familiar message on news broadcasts. Speaking on CNN in 2001, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said, “Please, let’s stop scoring points, let’s stop pointing fingers. Let’s go to discretion, wisdom and courage and get back to the negotiating table soon. Come on. Without any circumstances, because at the end of the day, we have recognized the state of Israel’s existence. It is up to you to sit on the high ground and return to the negotiating table. ”
He gained respect with some Israelis with whom he negotiated, including former Israeli diplomat and negotiator Elon Pinkas, who praised Erikat’s principles, questioning his ability to implement them. “Mr. Erekat has been a man of peace, and I’m a man of faith, and a man I can respect. That’s good news. The bad news is that Erekat doesn’t call shots.
Direct negotiations
Born in Jerusalem and educated in the United States and the United Kingdom, Erickat became a member of the Fatah Party, and was close to its influential founder and leader, Yasher Arafat. From Oslo, he advocated direct negotiations towards a bipartisan settlement. Distrustful to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Erekat focused most of his criticism in later years on the man who would become Israel’s longest-serving leader.
After Netanyahu’s address to the United Nations General Assembly in 2018, Ericat said, “His speech denies Israel our right to exist, to live in freedom and to celebrate our national identity. What is the reality on the ground in occupied Palestine? A colonial-apartheid state … For the Israeli government, not only the issues of Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees are on the table, but also the existence of Palestine. ”
Erekt believed that Netanyahu had no intention of making concessions necessary for the creation of an independent Palestinian Palestinian state, a position further strengthened by the arrival of President Donald Trump. The Trump administration’s plan for Middle East peace needed some concessions from Israelis while demanding big concessions from Palestinians.
“What we hear about Jerusalem being the capital of Israel, the issue of refugees, security, leaving borders, can’t be called a deal of the century,” Ericat told CNN’s Becky Anderson in January. “It’s the fraud and deception of the century.”
He added, “We have seen the most inappropriate game ever in international relations.” My future, my aspirations, my time, the time of my grandchildren – no one is trying to decide that without consulting me – because they Netanyahu wants to win the election and he wants to win the election in 2020, that’s the most ridiculous chapter. ”
It was a difficult time for Erekat. Diplomats and journalists who met him in the early weeks of 2020 found him emotionally frustrated, reflecting a sense of personal failure, sometimes even close to tears as he tried to argue the Palestinian cause again.
Months later, when the UAE and Bahrain announced a major reversal of Arab policy, normalizing relations with Israel, despite the lack of progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Erikat found himself and the PLO looking outside once again.
“The UAE and Bahrain are contributing to Trump’s presidential campaign at the expense of the incredible rights of the Palestinian people,” Erekat posted on his Twitter account.
And despite those challenges, Erdogan ended his ubiquitous presence in the international arena and in the media, insisting on the importance of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, even though it seems to have slipped down the list of priorities. Western countries and the Arab world.
It was a mission with which he would vulnerably connect, despite the diminishing possibility of his imminent realization. But he never retaliated, seeing no other way to peace for the millions of Israelis and Palestinians throughout the region.
Abir Salman of CNN contributed to this report.
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