AMY DOCKSER MARCUS | JERICHO It isn’t easy campaigning to succeed Yasser Arafat. Standing in the way is Mr. Arafat, who is the undisputed leader of the Palestinians and wants to stay that way. Then there are obstacles, such as the Palestinian’s powerful neighbors, the Israelis, who are always meddling in Palestinian politics. And there’s the trick of seeming tough enough to win backing from the populace without making the mighty Americans suspect you oppose the Mideast peace process.
Saeb Erekat’s name is rarely mentioned as one of the handful of Palestinians who are considered candidates to succeed Mr. Arafat as head of the Palestinian Authority. At age 42, Mr. Erekat is the lead Palestinian negotiator in peace talks with Israel and a minister in the Palestinian Authority cabinet.
Sitting in his office in Jericho, Mr. Erekat says he isn’t interested in running for president. He says it sincerely, and in explanation he recounts a moving story about his wife helping him pack his bags the night before his flight to Madrid to attend the first peace talks with Israel in 1991. At the time, he was a professor and prominent newspaper columnist, but an unknown in the Palestinian political scene.
“My wife Naama was crying, and she is a strong woman,” Mr. Erekat says. “I said, Naama, why are you crying? We are on the eve of peace talks. I am going to Madrid. She looked at me and said, ‘I’m crying because our lives will never be the same.’ ”
She was right. In Madrid, Mr. Erekat shot to prominence when he walked into the negotiating room wearing the traditional Palestinian headdress favored by Mr. Arafat. Yitzhak Shamir, then Israel’s prime minister, saw the move as a provocation and almost walked out of the negotiations, according to Israeli sources.
It was also risky, because Mr. Arafat hadn’t approved the move in advance, other delegation members say. But it played well in the West Bank and Gaza, where the scene made the nightly newscasts. Suddenly Mr. Erekat was a household name. And at a meeting after the conference, Mr. Erekat smoothed things over by giving Mr. Arafat the headdress he had worn, telling him, “This is my gift to you. They can’t hide who we are anymore. Soon Israel will have to sit with you and the PLO.”
Though he denies wanting someday to be president of Palestine, Mr. Erekat’s actions demonstrate otherwise. This isn’t the kind of campaign where candidates raise funds at dinners or set up political action committees, but Mr. Erekat has done the Palestinian version of those things.
He got appointed last year to the Fatah revolutionary council, the movement’s inner planning group and a key place to court influential party members who will be critical to getting elected.
Mr. Erekat has demonstrated his ability to raise cash on behalf of Palestinian causes. He met with the president of the World Bank to help get funding for Palestinian projects. When a major storm caused serious flooding in the Jericho area in October, Mr. Erekat got the U.S. and European countries to donate emergency aid and funds to the families’ umbrella group. A dinner with the past and present heads of the organization was set up. The group spent more than two hours talking about Palestinian goals and the American Jewish community’s concerns about Israel’s security. But it was also clear Mr. Erekat wanted the men to get to know him. He spoke about his background and family, his years studying in San Francisco and England, his life beyond the peace negotiations. He invited them to visit him at home in Jericho.
“He’s very clever,” says Mel Sandberg, the group’s chairman, who attended the dinner. “He understands the human condition. He knows what turns people on and what turns people off.”
Mr. Erekat talks about his 15-year-old daughter, Dalal. It is unusual for a Middle Eastern politician to speak so openly of his family, and it’s part of the American Style Mr. Erekat has brought to Palestinian politics.
“My daughter attended an Israeli-Palestinian peace camp last year in Maine,” he says. “After the flood hit Jericho, not one of my Israeli friends or counterparts in the peace talks called to ask me about my family or how I was doing. But 21 Israeli kids, 13 to 15 years old, called her. Every single one of the kids from that camp called Dalal to ask if she was OK, to see if we were OK. This is the future. This is what I am working to build, the culture of peace. It’s why I’m in politics.”
This power to shape Palestinian history is too much for him to give up, his friends say.
“My personal wish isn’t to be president. It is to get out of politics, to return to the university and be a professor again,” Mr. Erekat says. His friends don’t believe he will do it, and it isn’t even clear he does either.
And if supporters insist he run for president?
“Leaving politics is my personal wish,” he says. “But I don’t usually grant myself a personal wish.”