Saeb Erekat In Washington, DC In 2019 Editorial Photo

In this monochrome rendering, longtime Palestinian spokesman Saeb Erekat addresses the audience at the 2019 J Street Conference: Rise to the Moment, in Washington, DC on October 28, 2019, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in the nation`s capital. J Street is an American, predominantly Jewish organization, dedicated to trying to achieve peace between Israel and Arab nations and between Israel and the Palestinians in the form of a a two-state solution. Erekat, an intense but affable diplomat, represented Yasser Arafat and advocated for the Palestinian cause for decades. He was a secretary-general of the PLO Executive Committee and was a close ally of Palestinian Authority president, Mahmood Abbas. He was a key negotiator at peace talks with the Israelis and the United States. Erekat, who attended American and British universities, was a professor of political science at An-Najah National University in Nablus. In recent years his health was fragile and he underwent successful lung transplant surgery in the United States. In October he contracted the COVID-19 virus and was transferred to the Hadassah University Hospital in Jerusalem when his condition worsened in the West Bank. But after a 3-week battle, he succumbed to complications from the pandemic, dying on November 10, 2020, at the age of 65.