Saeb Erekat, during a press conference in January 2019.MOHAMAD TOROKMAN / Reuters
Saeb Erekat will no longer see peace in Palestine, nor will he sit at the dialogue table with Israel that will foreseeably reopen the presidency of Democrat Joe Biden in the United States.
The most prominent Palestinian negotiator since the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference died this Tuesday in a Jerusalem hospital at the age of 65, after being infected with covid-19 in October.
Former minister, deputy, general secretary of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) from 2015, Erekat was above all the
right arm
of the historical leader Yasir Arafat, who died in 2004, and the current president of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas , in international contacts.
Trained at American and British universities, he was one of the most visible images of the Palestinians to Israel and the rest of the world.
His presence in the secret talks that led to the 1993 Oslo Accords was key to the building of Palestinian self-government over the past quarter century.
He participated in almost all the peace conferences sponsored by Washington, since Camp David (2000), during the presidency of Bill Clinton;
through Annapolis (2007), under George W. Bush, to the negotiations promoted by Barack Obama that last stalled in 2014. He also tried with Jared Kushner, special envoy and Donald Trump's son-in-law, until that diplomatic bridges with the United States were broken by the Republican in 2017, when the White House arbitration was clearly heeded in favor of the Jewish State with the recognition of Jerusalem as the exclusive capital of Israel.
Born in 1955 in the Holy City into a traditional Palestinian clan, the biblical Jericho oasis in the Jordan Valley was, however, the center of his existence and where he lived almost to the end of his days.
From exile, Arafat soon noticed the young professor of Political Science at the University of Nablus (northern West Bank) who invited Israeli intellectuals to his classes, and columnist for the daily
Al Quds
, who faced the occupation with political arguments. and legal.
Sent as deputy head of the Palestinian delegation to the Madrid Peace Conference, his image with the
kufiya
(traditional Palestinian scarf) on his shoulders did not go unnoticed in the Palacio de Oriente, the headquarters of the negotiations in the Spanish capital.
Since then —and from 1994 heading the diplomatic teams— he made the title of one of his eight books the central axis of his career:
Life is a negotiation
.
After suffering a heart attack in 2012 and, above all, undergoing a lung transplant five years later in the United States, his health gradually deteriorated.
The ailments did not prevent him from continuing to maintain close relationships with foreign diplomats and journalists.
In 2015, shortly after Benjamin Netanyahu won elections in Israel for a third consecutive term, the Palestinian chief negotiator openly challenged him by offering a clandestine press conference at a hotel in East Jerusalem.
Erekat never stopped using international law and the two-state solution as a weapon to achieve a Palestine free from occupation and independent.
"The Israelis do not want us to resort to armed struggle, or to go to the UN Security Council, or to the International Criminal Court (ICC)," he argued with characteristic vehemence in his office in Ramallah, in an interview with EL COUNTRY in February.
"Netanyahu is announcing thousands of new homes in settler settlements every day and Europe continues to engage with him as if nothing had happened," he warned.
"That is why we have knocked on the door of the ICC so that Israel's crimes do not go unpunished."
Evacuated to an Israeli hospital
In recent months, he did not relent in his criticism of the Arab countries - Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan - that have established relations with Israel, breaking the consensus of unity of action signed in the Saudi peace initiative of 2002. But in early October , Erekat began to feel bad and his collaborators announced that he had covid-19, made worse by a very weakened immune system as a result of the transplant.
He was initially isolated at his home in Jericho, assisted by his wife and four children, but when his condition became critical he was urgently evacuated to the Israeli Hadasah hospital in Ein Karem, in the Jerusalem district, where he has remained for almost three weeks. in an induced coma and connected to a respirator.
The Arab League, the European Union, numerous countries have joined in the posthumous tribute to his effort to build a state for the Palestinians through negotiation and international law.
The
rais
Abbas declared three days of official mourning in memory of a "brother and friend (...) amid the difficult times through the Palestinian cause."
Hanan Ashrawi, a veteran leader who also participated in the Madrid Conference, recalled that, "in addition to pursuing a just peace, he maintained a firm commitment to the freedom and human rights of the Palestinians."
With the goodbye usually comes the recognition of the antagonist.
Tzipi Livni, the Israeli negotiator who spent the longest time at the dialogue table with Erekat, has sent him away with an emotional memory.
“We are going to miss him.
He always said that his destiny was to achieve peace, ”the former Israeli minister tweeted.
“When he was already sick, he sent me this message: 'I have not finished the mission for which I was born.'
I'm saddened by the death of @ErakatSaeb.
Saeb dedicated his life to his people.
Reaching Peace is my destiny I used to say.
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.
He will be missed.
- ציפי לבני Tzipi Livni (@Tzipi_Livni) November 10, 2020