Veteran Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat, who shepherded relations with world powers for more than three decades, has died after contracting coronavirus.
“The departure of a brother and a friend, of the great fighter, Dr Saeb Erekat, is a great loss for Palestine and our people, and we are deeply saddened,” Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas said.
An academic and author whose command of English was often spiced with humour, Dr Erekat, 65, was part of every team to negotiate with Israel since 1991, with the notable exception of that which secretly hammered out the 1993 Oslo Accords.
He took part in the failed Camp David summit in July 2000, and the September 2010 talks in Washington, which stopped in a row over Israel’s settlement building.
He was also chief negotiator in 2014 when then US president Barack Obama tried to restart peace efforts.
Born in Jerusalem in 1955, and growing up in the shadow of Israel’s victory over its Arab neighbours in the 1967 Six-Day War, the father of four dedicated much of his life to seeking a resolution to the crisis.
Dr Erakat, a member of the Palestinian parliament since 1996, was close to Yasser Arafat.
He became a key figure in the Palestinian political landscape, an indispensable briefer for foreign envoys and a suave tactician who could register indignation when necessary.
Read the article in The Australian (AFP).