NOVANEWS
Senior Palestinian negotiator from 2008 who has been involved in talks for nearly 20 years despite lack of street credibility.
Senior Palestinian negotiator from 2008, Saeb Erekat’s sense of drama has enlivened hundreds of negotiations. Photograph: Muhammed Muheisen/AP
Saeb Erekat has been negotiating with Israel on and off for nearly 20 years, beginning as vice-chairman of the Palestinian team at the landmark Madrid peace conference in 1991.
Erekat’s wisecracking style and sense of drama has enlivened hundreds of meetings – although he comes across in the leaked documents as slightly manic and often sarcastic. “Even rabbits have a defence mechanism,” the PLO’s chief negotiator quipped during a discussion of how Palestinians could deal with provocations by Israel.
Born in Jericho, where he still lives, in 1955, he studied political science in the US and acquired a green card. He lectured at An-Najah University in Nablus before doing a doctorate in peace studies in Bradford. He was placed under house arrest during the first intifada in 1987 and banned by Israel from travelling abroad.
Erekat resigned as a negotiator when the secret Oslo accords were made public in 1993, but became the only leading West Banker to join Yasser Arafat’s inner circle after the establishment of the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. He served as a minister and an MP, and took part in the 2000 Camp David and 2001 Taba peace talks.
With little street credibility and no experience in the armed struggle he has no natural power base in an often brutal political environment, but remains a member of the influential Fatah central committee. He has held on to his position despite efforts by rivals to break what one US report described as his “near monopoly on the negotiating process”. Aaron David Miller, a veteran American negotiator, recalled in his memoirs how in Oslo in 1998 he witnessed “Saeb’s colleagues hound and pound him so badly that they literally drove him out of the room”.
Erekat told American and Israeli officials during the most recent negotiations that he felt his daughters were ashamed of him and his wife saw him as weak because of the Palestinians’ failure to make tangible progress towards freedom and independence.
The Palestine papers show that his sense of humour becomes more self-deprecating when he is under pressure: “If someone sneezes in Tel Aviv, I get the flu in Jericho.”