RAMALLAH: Saeb Erakat, tapped to lead the Palestinian negotiating team in fresh peace talks that start Thursday, has long been both the savvy spokesman of the moderate leadership and a pugnacious critic of the Israeli occupation.
Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas will negotiate directly with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, with Erakat leading a team that will work out with Israeli negotiators the details of any agreement.
The brisk-talking 55-year-old diplomat has spent nearly two decades prominently defending the Palestinian cause in the Western media.
Born in Jerusalem on April 28, 1955, Erakat first began negotiating on behalf of the Palestinians at the 1991 Madrid talks that led to the landmark Oslo Autonomy Accords two years later.
As a lifelong moderate, the bespectacled politician has frequently appeared on television, consistently advocating a peaceful solution to the conflict, even during the most severe outbreaks of violence.
But he has also been sharply critical of the Israeli occupation and has repeatedly warned that bloodshed is inevitable if Israel does not withdraw from territories occupied in the 1967 Six Day War, including east Jerusalem, and agree to a just solution for the Palestinian refugee problem.
In recent months he has been especially vocal on the Palestinian demand for the renewal of a partial Israeli settlement moratorium set to expire later this month.
"If Netanyahu decides to renew settlement tenders come September 26, he will have decided to stop the negotiations," he told reporters in the West Bank.
"The choice of the Israeli government is settlement or peace, they cannot have both."
Despite being a strong advocate of the Palestinian cause, Erakat has rarely called the shots at the highest level and has often been at odds with the stalwarts in the Palestinian leadership.
In 1999, the late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat sacked him after personal differences emerged during negotiations with Israel.
And in 2003, he briefly resigned as senior negotiator, just two weeks after Mahmud Abbas who is now the president of the Palestinian Authority was sworn in as prime minister, reportedly in protest at being sidelined from talks.
Erakat has also been a rare voice condemning corruption in the Western-backed Palestinian Authority.
Erakat, who lives in the West Bank oasis town of Jericho, was elected to the Palestinian parliament in 1996 and again in 2006.
He was first named chief negotiator in 2003 but played a supporting role in the last round of peace talks held in late 2007 and 2008, in which the team was led by former Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei.
He has been a professor of political science at Al-Najah University in Nablus and also served on the editorial staff of the Al-Quds newspaper. He was educated in the United States and Britain, is married and has four children.
