Saeb Muhammad Salih Erekat (also: 'Sa'ib', 'Erakat', 'Urayqat', , born April 28 1955) is the
PalestinianThe Palestinian people, also referred to as Palestinians or Palestinian Arabs , are an Arabic-speaking people with family origins in Palestine...
chief of the PLO Steering and Monitoring Committee. He negotiated the
Oslo AccordsThe Oslo Accords, officially called the Declaration of Principles on Interim Self-Government Arrangements or Declaration of Principles became a milestone toward the resolution of the Palestinian - Israeli conflict, one of the major continuing issues within the wider Arab-Israeli conflict...
with
IsraelIsrael officially the State of Israel , is a developed state in Western Asia located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its...
and remained chief negotiator from 1995 until May 2003, when he resigned in protest from the Palestinian government. He later reconciled with the party and was re-appointed to the post in September 2003. He is currently part of the Israel-
FatahNot to be confused with Fatah Revolutionary Council also known as Abu Nidal OrganizationFataḥ is a major Palestinian political party and the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization , a multi-party confederation. In Palestinian politics it is on the center-left of the spectrum...
negotiations team working to establish a Palestinian state.
Personal life and education
Saeb Erekat was born on April 28, 1955 in
Abu-DisAbu-Dis is a CD album of Avantgerdism Vol 1 and East Westercisms remixes by Muslimgauze of other artists' material. Compiled in association with Law & Auder Records. All tracks remixed by Muslimgauze. Original track titles were renamed by Muslimgauze during the remix process...
East JerusalemEast Jerusalem refers to the parts of Jerusalem captured by Jordan in the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, and subsequently by Israel in the 1967 Six-Day War. It includes Jerusalem's Old City and some of the holiest sites of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, such as the Temple Mount, Western Wall, Al-Aqsa...
, into a famous Muslim family, then under Jordanian rule. He has six siblings. Erekat received a
BABachelor of Arts , from the Latin artium baccalaureus, is a bachelor's degree awarded for an undergraduate course or program in either the liberal arts, the sciences or both....
and
MAA Master of Arts is a postgraduate academic master degree awarded by universities in many countries. The degree is typically studied for in English, Fine Arts, History, Nursing, Humanities, Geography, Philosophy, Social Sciences or Theology and can be either fully-taught, research-based, or a...
in
Political SciencePolitical science is a social science concerned with the theory and practice of politics and the description and analysis of political systems and political behavior. It is often described as the pragmatic application of the art and science of politics defined as "who gets what, when and how",...
at
San Francisco State UniversitySan Francisco State University is a public university located in San Francisco, California...
in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and completed his
Ph.D.Ph.D. or PHD may stand for:* Doctor of Philosophy, an academic degree* Ph.D. , a 1980s British group* Piled Higher and Deeper, a web comic strip* PhD: Phantasy Degree, a Korean comic series* Parisada Hindu Dharma, an Indonesian organization...
in
Peace and conflict studiesPeace and conflict studies is a political science field that identifies and analyses violent and nonviolent behaviours as well as the structural mechanisms attending social conflicts with a view towards understanding those processes which lead to a more desirable human condition...
at Bradford University,
EnglandEngland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the North Sea to the east, with the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
. He is married with twin daughters and two sons.
Educator
He returned the
West BankThe West Bank is a landlocked territory and is the eastern part of the Palestinian territories; on the west bank of the River Jordan in the Middle East. To the west, north, and south, the West Bank shares borders with the state of Israel, which maintains the security of this area. To the east,...
town of
NablusNablus is a Palestinian city in the northern West Bank, approximately north of Jerusalem, with a population of 134,000...
to lecture in Political Science at the
An-Najah National UniversityAn-Najah National University is a Palestinian non-governmental public university governed by a board of Trustees. It is located in the mountainous region of the northern West Bank in and around the city of Nablus. The university has over 16,500 students and 300 professors in 19 faculties...
, and also served for 12 years on the editorial board of the widely-circulated Palestinian newspaper,
Al-QudsAl-Quds is a Palestinian Arabic language daily newspaper, based in Jerusalem. It is published in broadsheet format. It is the largest circulation daily newspaper in the Palestinian territories. It was founded in 1951 by Mahmoud Abu-Zalaf, who served as its editor-in-chief until his death in 2007...
.
He also served as secretary general of the Arab Studies Society.
Politics
Erekat has been at the center of negotiations with Israel for over a decade and has participated in numerous peace conferences.
In 1991, Erekat was deputy head of the Palestinian delegation to the
Madrid ConferenceThe Madrid Conference was hosted by the government of Spain and co-sponsored by the USA and the USSR. It convened on October 30 1991 and lasted for three days...
and the subsequent follow-up talks in Washington between 1992 and 1993. Later, in 1994, he was appointed the Minister for Local Government for the Palestinian Authority and also the Chairman of the Palestinian negotiation delegation. In 1995, Erekat served as Chief Negotiator for the Palestinians during the Oslo period. He was then elected to the
Palestinian Legislative CouncilThe Palestinian Legislative Council, the legislature of the Palestinian Authority, is a unicameral body with 132 members, elected from 16 electoral districts in the West Bank and Gaza...
in 1996, representing
JerichoJericho is a city located near the Jordan River in the West Bank of the Palestinian Territories. It is the capital of the Jericho Governorate, and has a population of over 20,000 Palestinians. Situated well below sea level on an east-west route north of the Dead Sea, Jericho is the lowest...
. As a politician, Erekat was considered to be a
Yasser ArafatMohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority, and leader of the Fatah political...
loyalist. including the Camp David meetings in 2000 and the negotiations at
TabaThe Taba summit were talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, held from January 21 to January 27, 2001 at Taba in the Sinai peninsula...
in 2001. Erekat was also, along with Arafat and
Faisal HusseiniFaisal Abdel Qader Al-Husseini was a Palestinian politician who was considered a possible future leader of the Palestinian people....
, one of the three high-ranking Palestinians who asked
Ariel Sharon' is an Israeli general and statesman, former Israeli Prime Minister...
not to visit the
Al-Aqsa MosqueAl-Aqsa Mosque , also known as al-Aqsa, is an Islamic holy place in the Old City of Jerusalem...
in September 2000, an event which sparked off the Second Intifada.He also acted as
Yasser ArafatMohammed Abdel Rahman Abdel Raouf Arafat al-Qudwa al-Husseini , popularly known as Yasser Arafat or by his kunya Abu Ammar , was a Palestinian leader. He was Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization , President of the Palestinian National Authority, and leader of the Fatah political...
's English interpreter. When
Mahmoud AbbasMahmoud Abbas , also known by the kunya Abu Mazen , has been the Chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organisation since 11 November 2004 and became President of the Palestinian National Authority on 15 January 2005 on the Fatah ticket.Elected to serve until 9 January 2009, he unilaterally...
was nominated to serve as Prime Minister of the Palestinian Legislative Council in early 2003, Erekat was slated to be Minister of Negotiations in the new cabinet, but he soon resigned after he was excluded from a delegation to meet with Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon' is an Israeli general and statesman, former Israeli Prime Minister...
. This was interpreted as part of an internal Palestinian power struggle between Abbas and Arafat. Erekat was later reappointed to his post and participated in the 2007
Annapolis Conference-Attendees:U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice organized and hosted the conference. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and U.S. President George W. Bush attended the meeting...
, where he took over from Ahmed Qureia during an impasse and helped hammer out a joint declaration.
Erekat is one of the more prominent Palestinian spokespeople in the Western media. He was criticised by some pro-Israeli commentators who alleged that he inflated Palestinian casualty figures during the
IDF's 2002 assault in the Palestinian town of JeninThe Battle of Jenin took place in the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank. Israel Defense Forces entered the camp, and other areas under the administration of the Palestinian Authority, during the Second Intifada, as part of Operation Defensive Shield...
, and that he characterized the operation as a massacre. In an interview with Israeli Army Radio ahead of the Annapolis summit in 2007, he rejected demands that Palestinians should recognise Israel's status as a Jewish state.
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