SAEB EREKAT AND THE FOLLY OF BDS
Saeb Muhyammad Salih Erekat is the Secretary General of the Executive Committee of the PLO and he is also the chief Palestinian Authority [PA]negotiator with Israel, a resident of Yeriho/Jericho in Judea/West Bank. He, like many others, got infected with Covid-19. He is in a very difficult condition, and he is being treated now in the Hadassah hospital in Jerusalem, the Capital of Israel. I pray and hope that he will survive. Jews believe that if you save one soul , it is as if you saved the entire world. Jews also believe in the old biblical rule, ‘’rejoice not when thine enemy falleth’’. Besides I know Erakat personally, I debated with him on TV, and I wish I can one of these days appear with him on TV not as adversaries, rather as partners for peace.
That said, here is something from the field. There is no more Arab-Israeli conflict as we have come to know it. Arab countries are signing normalization and peace treaties with Israel. Others are waiting to do so. The historic tide has changed. Israel is no more the hated bogey enemy of the Arabs, rather Israel is becoming a legitimate, in fact, a desired actor in the politics of the Middle East. Two countries are leading the most vitriolic line of opposition to this historic development. These are Turkey and Iran, both are not Arab countries, both have no joint border with Israel, both have never had any direct dispute with Israel. This is now a new conflict which these two countries want to maintain-a religious war between Muslims and Jews. They are supported by some Arab countries , for example, Syria ,Yemen and Libya, all countries which are basking in blood, blood of their own people, who are falling victim to terrible civil wars. Turkey and Iran are also supported by many in the Western world. Mostly progressives, people who claim to be in the peace camp, but also White Supremacists, racists of all kinds, antisemites of the Alt-Right and the hard core Left. Nothing really combines these two opposing political groups, other than the hatred to Jews and Israel. They are offering the world nothing new really, after all antisemitism is the oldest recorded human hatred, but there is something else which they offer -boycott of Israel, conflict, violence. They sell it to the Arabs who still want to perpetuate the conflict-some of the Arab countries, as well as the Palestinians. They are spread all over the world, far from the area where this conflict still takes place. They do not pay the price which the conflict exacts from Arabs and Jews, from Palestinians and Israelis.
Yes, there is still is a Palestinian -Israeli conflict, and in these days, when the winds of peace are blowing all over the Middle East, both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas are almost alone in the Arab world in their opposition to a final peace settlement with Israel. They are supported by these two countries, Iran and Turkey, and by their followers in the Western world, all those who stoke the fires of conflict, those who want the Palestinians to suffer, while they are pretending to keep their ideological purity . Sadly, the Palestinians fall in the trap. They have done it until now under the political leadership of people like Saeb Erekat.
Erekat and his comrades in the leadership of the Palestinian Authority[PA]encourage boycott of Israel, in itself an act of warfare, but then they are the first to come to the same Israel and use its good services in their personal time of need. They know why-Israel is expected to respond as humanly as possible. It is something that also the founder of the racist BDS movement knows. Omar Barghouti, whose movement is behind so much anti semitic activity all over the world, stated , when asked whether it is OK to use Israeli-made vaccine for Covid, if one was to be developed by Israel;’’up until now, we have not been in a situation where we need Israel urgently and no one else can save us but Israel. If that will happen, saving lives is more important than anything else’’, Words of wisdom, especially when coming from such an instigator of racism. Israel proves that saving life is indeed the most important thing to do. The life of a sworn enemy like Erekat is.
Saving Erekat life is, indeed, so important and hopefully, will succeed. Maybe, hopefully, when Saeb Erekat will leave the hospital healthy and robust, he will call upon Barghouti and all the other racist BDS activists to stop the hatred. Peace is the best way in which more life than just that of Erekat can be saved.
