{"id":3962,"date":"2018-12-06T17:30:50","date_gmt":"2018-12-06T04:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/?p=3962"},"modified":"2018-12-06T10:01:27","modified_gmt":"2018-12-05T21:01:27","slug":"holding-palestinian-leaders-to-account","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/israelinstitute.nz\/2018\/12\/holding-palestinian-leaders-to-account\/","title":{"rendered":"Holding Palestinian leaders to account"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interviewing the Palestinian Authority’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, at the Berlin Foreign Policy Forum for the German media outlet Deutsche Welle<\/a>, Tim Sebastian asked hard questions about the PA dealings with the Trump administration, the [lack of a] peace process, corruption within the PA, and human rights violations recently highlighted by Human Rights Watch also<\/a>. The interview was a rare example of a Western reporter willing to ignore obfuscations and tired cliches and hold a Palestinian leader to account.<\/p>\n

Sebastian brought up the fact that the PA has cut funds to Gaza and other aggressive policies toward Hamas, causing hardship that prompted rare protests among Arab Palestinians<\/a>. Erekat’s response was only “That’s not true\u2026 I have an overloaded wagon of complexities.”<\/p>\n

And the response of the PA negotiator to the human rights abuses, including PA security forces arresting and beating those protesters was “Well look, if you want me to be perfect, I’m not perfect”.<\/p>\n

Erekat also agreed there was corruption within the Palestinian leadership and suggested there were steps being taken to prevent it, saying “Last year, four Palestinian ministers were in front of the court of corruption. I think it’s the only time in the history of Arab and Islamic countries.” However, Sebastian raised the recent discovery of salaries and raises being paid to employees of “Palestinian Airlines”, which no longer exists. To this charge, Erekat suggested that “Nobody pockets any money” but did not elaborate on where the money went.<\/p>\n