What Erekat’s resignation means for Israeli-Palestinian peace
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat quit Saturday after 20 years in the diplomatic service, taking responsibility for the leak of over 1,600 documents stolen from his office.
Known as the Palestinian papers, the documents reveal Erekat and his colleagues were willing to give more to Israelis than they had made known to the public.
As late as 2008, Palestinian negotiators understood that a peace deal with Israel meant that most settlements in East Jerusalem, comprising over 200,000 Jews, would remain under Israeli sovereignty. As Haaretz.com reports, “the Palestinians offered to let Israel keep all but one of the Jewish enclaves it built in East Jerusalem after capturing it in the 1967 Mideast war.”
This means Palestinian leaders were actually prepared to negotiate a peace deal with Israel where they would allow most Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem to be part of the Israeli state, instead of being in “occupied territory.”
But while the leaders might have discussed such concessions, Erekat’s resignation reveals they would have never flown with the Palestinian public.
Whether or not the Palestinian Authority would have eventually allowed these concessions to go through, the fact that they were on the table reveals some ability to compromise on core issues to resolve the crisis.
For 20 years Erekat was an outspoken critic of Israel’s methods for achieving peace, always blaming Israel for failed peace talks. His public stance was always non-compromising in the Palestinians’ quest for statehood. And although no final peace deal was every reached, the Palestinian public generally remained supportive of Erekat’s hard-line approach.
Witnessing him speak at a 2008 debate in Jerusalem, he was very persuasive of the Palestinians’ case for statehood on their current terms. He exuded confidence and absolute defiance in the face of Israeli logic. His rhetoric was a challenge to the most seasoned of debaters. His belligerence was exactly what the public wanted.
And yet, one small revelation that he was actually willing to do what all negotiators do—compromise—and he is out of a job and now fears for the safety of his family.
It paints a gloomy picture for the potential of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process when the “peacemakers” are forced out because of willingness to compromise.
So what does Erekat’s resignation mean for Israeli-Palestinian peace? It shows that the Palestinian public will not allow their figureheads to make a peace with Israel that concedes one inch on their demands.
It is this mindset that will lead to the eventual clash over Jerusalem, the one issue that Israel itself will not compromise on and something the Trumpet has prophesied for years.
