September 28, 2010

Palestinian Peacemakers?

By Gabriel Latner
With Israeli-Palestinian peace talks set to resume, the Palestinian delegation is center-stage. But who are these men who hold the fate of Middle-Eastern peace in their hands?Saeb Erekat, the white-haired don of Palestinian diplomacy, is a fixture on Al-Jazeera and other Arabic television stations. Erekat has a proven record of saying one thing in English for international consumption and quite another in Arabic. Mr. Erekat is hardly alone in this, as Mr. Abbas calls himself a partner for peace, while telling Palestinians that "Israel does not want peace" and that the Palestine Liberation Organization will not make "even one concession" to it.At the close of the Camp David summit in 2000, Erekat argued that the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, of which the Western Wall is the last surviving piece, is a Jewish myth. Erekat exaggerates and exploits Israel's sins for political gain. In 2002, he accused Israel of killing "more than 500 people" in Jenin, when in...(Read Full Article)