|
Saeb Erekat, longtime negotiator for the Palestinian Liberation Organization and secretary-general of the PLO died Tuesday at Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. Ironically, although he encouraged people worldwide to boycott Israel, he spent the last four weeks of his life in an Israeli hospital, where he knew he would receive only the most excellent of care.
He will be mourned and eulogized by many. I, for one, will not be tearing my cloth and weeping. One might do well to ask what Erekat's contribution was to the cause of his people, or to that of peace between Israel and the Palestinians.
Erekat had been the chief political negotiator standing by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak at Camp David in July 2000, as well as the main negotiator standing by PA President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2008. How did his wise counsel work out? No one could better describe it then US President Bill Clinton, in his 2004 autobiography, My Life, where he wrote, "Right before I let office, Arafat, in one of our last conversations, thanked me for all of my efforts and told me what a great man I was, 'Mr. Charmian,' I replied 'I am not a great man. I am a failure, and you have made me one.'"
Read the full article here.
|
