Top Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat dies of Covid-19

Saeb Erekat during a press conference in Ramallah in January 2019.

Mohamad Torokman / Reuters

Whenever Palestinians and Israelis sat at the negotiating table instead of covering themselves with accusations through the media, he was there: Saeb Erekat. The man with the round face and glasses then explained the Palestinian position eloquently and at times evenly. On November 10, the 65-year-old man died in a Jerusalem hospital as a result of Covid-19, a daughter confirmed.

Trained in the United States and England

On October 9, Erekat announced that he had been infected with the new virus. He suffered from a chronic lung disease, causing his health to deteriorate so badly in a few days that he had to be admitted from his home in Jericho to the renowned Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem on Sunday (October 18). Right-wing circles did not understand this and flogged him as a terrorist after his death. Western diplomats and also former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who crossed the sword with Erekat in tough negotiations, recalled his merits. He was saddened by Erekat’s death, Livni tweeted. Already ill, she texted him, “I’m not done with what I was born with.”

Former US special envoy Martin Indyk called Erekat a “brother.” Erekat’s commitment to freedom by peaceful means will always be a shining example for the Palestinians.

The President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas, declared a three-day state duel. The death of “our brother and friend, the great fighter” Erekat was a huge loss for Palestine and the Palestinian people, Abbas said.

Erekat was born in April 1955 in Abu Dis, a village on the eastern outskirts of Jerusalem. After the Six Day War in 1967, Israel confiscated part of the land and established settlements on it. Today, more like a small town, Abu Dis is symbolic of the failure of the so-called Oslo Accords and the hopes for a two-state solution, for which Erekat had campaigned all his life. The large building that was erected as the seat of the Palestinian Parliament is now abandoned and unfinished.

On the part of the Palestinians, the construction was intended as an interim solution. Until a deal was reached on occupied East Jerusalem, politicians would have had at least a view of the Temple Mount and the Al-Aqsa Mosque from here. Instead, for about two decades, the several-meter-high barrier has separated the inhabitants of Abu Dis from Jerusalem. In January 2020, US President Donald Trump announced with his “peace plan” to the Palestinians without further ado that they could make Abu Dis and some other distant places their capital al-Kuds (Jerusalem).

Protected von Arafat

Erekat came from a wealthy family that ensured the safety of pilgrims and travelers between Jerusalem and Jericho in Ottoman times. He studied Political Science in San Francisco and obtained a Ph.D. in Peace and Conflict Studies from the University of Bradford in Great Britain. After completing his PhD, he returned to the West Bank and taught political science at Najah University in Nablus. He was also a member of the editorial team of the daily “al-Kuds” for twelve years.

In the early 1990s, Yasir Arafat, the then head of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), added Erekat to his negotiating team. Speaking fluent English and always dressed in a suit and tie, Erekat became a sought-after interview partner in the international media after the 1991 Madrid Conference and thus became the face of the Palestinians. With the exception of the secret negotiations in Oslo, he participated in all attempts to resolve the conflict with Israel. Diplomats praised Erekat as a tenacious but reliable negotiator. It could be funny, but also sarcastic. “If someone sneezes in Tel Aviv, I get a cough in Jericho,” he once said. And he reacted to the continuous construction of settlements and the destruction of houses: “Even rabbits have defense mechanisms.”

After the establishment of the Palestinian Authority, he became a member of parliament, then a minister and chief negotiator in the peace negotiations at Camp David and Taba in Egypt (2001). Without the spurs of the militant combatant, Erekat lacked his own inner power within autonomous authority. His position was owed mainly to his supporter Yasir Arafat. After a power struggle between Arafat and his successor Mahmoud Abbas, Erekat threw in the towel in 2003. He returned shortly after, became a high-ranking member of Fatah, which rules the West Bank, Secretary General of the PLO and, upon death de Arafat in 2004, a close advisor to Abbas.

Long goodbye

In poor health, Erekat remained Abbas’s top diplomat until the end, but was unable to initiate the urgently needed renewal of the PLO or reforms in autonomous authority. Three years ago he announced that he had pulmonary fibrosis. Everyone should know that he is proud of every year that he has lived “like a soldier for Palestine,” he said in an interview. “There will be a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as the capital. This is a historic necessity. ”An American hospital saved the then 62-year-old with a lung transplant.

Meanwhile, lasting peace was far away. Towards the end of his life, Erekat had to watch Israel reach a normalization agreement with the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain without having to make concessions to the Palestinians. Erekat harshly criticized this, but could not change it. While representatives from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, Egypt and Jordan wished him a speedy recovery after his Covid 19 illness, there was an iron silence among Israel’s new friends in the Gulf.