Together, we mourn the passing of Saeb Erekat and extend our heartfelt condolences to his wife Niemeh and his four children Salam, Dalal, Ali and Muhammed.
They should be proud of who he was and what he accomplished in his life, through his decades of dedicated involvement in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, even though he would not live to see his greatest hope realized – a two state solution in which an independent Palestinian state would live in peace beside a secure Israel.
Saeb was a unique figure among Palestinian officials and negotiators with whom we dealt. With degrees from U.S. and UK universities, and teaching experience at the West Bank’s An-Najah University, he lacked the PLO diaspora credentials, the political standing, and the street cred of Israeli prison time of many of his colleagues in the Palestinian national movement.
Indeed, those colleagues often joked at his expense that he was “Mr. CNN” because of his fondness for the media and his passionate presentations before the cameras.
And yet, from the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference onward, he would be involved in almost every negotiating effort between Israelis and Palestinians.
Saeb’s influence flowed from different sources. Both Yasser Arafat and Mahmoud Abbas needed a negotiator who could relate to both the Israelis and the Americans as well as the international community and the media; his command of English and his capacity to analyze and draft texts became essential once the negotiations reached that stage.
No one else on the Palestinian side could play that role. His diligence was remarkable, and he became the most reliable repository of the negotiating record. Sometimes to a fault.
We had our differences because at times he could be inflexible. But then, without an independent base of his own and subject to Arafat’s whims, Saeb had little flexibility to depart from core Palestinian positions, and we often suspected, his bosses did not want him to do so.
The other reality is that no other Palestinian negotiator was as committed and indefatigable as Saeb in pursuit of a two state solution to be achieved through peaceful means.
Saeb genuinely believed – even well past the time when many of us had given up hope – that a conflict-ending solution was possible, no matter how bleak the moment. As he confronted his own mortality during his lung transplant in 2018, he told some of us that what kept him alive was his determination to achieve peace.
This was no talking point. This man deeply believed in dialogue and reconciliation with Israelis, eschewed violence, and lived his life accordingly. He sent his children to Seeds of Peace, a program that fosters coexistence and dialogue, sat on its Advisory Board and spoke on behalf of the organization and Israeli-Palestinian reconciliation whenever and wherever he could.
We mark Saeb’s passing knowing full well that prospects for an enduring peace between Israelis and Palestinians seem now like a distant dream. Having worked on this issue for years, we have no illusions, and neither did Saeb. But he never abandoned hope that with leadership, courage and determination peace remained possible.
Saeb Erekat never gave up hope, and to honor him, neither should we. May his memory and good works always be a blessing.
Comments(1)
The face of the Palestinian national movement has always been two-fold -- the face it presented to American and European audiences, and the real face of the same movement. I have no doubt that Dr. Erekat represented that first face with great dignity and aplomb. He, of course, was the darling of the Israeli Left. But now after twenty-seven years of Palestinian intransigence and constant violence; in Israel, the Labor Party, and the Left in general, have become almost non-existent. The fundamental truth is: That the preponderance of blame for the failure of the Oslo Peace Process can be firmly placed at the feet of two men -- Arafat and Abbas. In the 1990s, many Israelis on the Left naively believed in what they called the "New Middle East". The rest of Israel waited to see if Dr. Erekat's non-violence and hope for reconciliation would indeed materialize. The vast majority of Israelis sincerely hoped it would. But it never did, not for even a moment. Now the Israeli Left and Peace Now have been politically decimated. As an ex-kibbutznik, I know first-hand exactly what I'm talking about. At Camp David in 2000, Israel was poised to withdraw from at least 95% of the West Bank, and also offer half of Jerusalem as a Palestinian capital. Of course, for the second face of the Palestinian movement, it wasn't enough! Now, if you want to know what the Israeli Left truly believes you don't read Haaretz or the Washington Post -- you read: Adi Schwartz, Einat Wilf, Yaacov Lozowick, Ben-Dror Yemini and Benny Morris. Or, if you were a leftist, you're now a centrist or even a center-rightist. At the crux of the matter is the question of sovereignty at the river. The PLO demanded an independent border with Jordan and a complete Israeli withdrawal from the Jordan River Valley. In other words, Arafat and Abbas wanted access to a permeable border even within the nebulous concept of so-called "demilitarization". Only a fool could sign on to such a project. And the Palestinians actually took Israelis for fools. Not Dr. Erekat, but the other face of the Palestinian movement. Now the Two-State Solution is defunct. But the hope of peace will always be vital to all Israelis, as it pervades all of Jewish cultural, philosophical and religious thought. Judaism constantly awaits the coming epoch of world peace. Our ultimate faith, for thousands and thousands years, has been intimately linked to a deity whose supreme value is peace. Unlike others, we are taught to mourn our enemies.
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