Escalating the Palestinian leadership’s rhetorical assault on Israel, the chief Palestinian Authority negotiator, Saeb Erekat, on Monday claimed that 96 percent of Gazans killed in the summer’s Israel-Hamas conflict were civilians, reiterated PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s charge of Israeli “genocide,” and accused Israel of seeking to impose apartheid on the Palestinians.
Erekat, in the radio interview, defined genocide as “a direct attempt to eliminate, horrify, relocate, destroy a way of life” and claimed “Israel committed the killing of 12,000 and wounding 12,000 Palestinians; 96 percent of them are civilians.”
Not even the most extreme anti-Israel Gaza NGO claimed that 96% of those killed in Gaza were civilians, or that 12,000 were killed.
The radio interview is in English and these absurd lies can be heard at the 30 second mark here. He also says Israel "demolished" 50,000 homes (according to anti-Israel site Electronic Intifada, 15,670 homes were damaged, not demolished,) and that 500,000 Gazans are homeless (that is the maximum number displaced during the war but only about 50,000 remain in shelters as of a few weeks ago.)
I cannot remember a single interview of his or article he's written that was not filled with lies.
So how can Erekat continue to lie so openly and brazenly in literally every statement he ever makes in public? What is behind it?
It turns out that Erekat explains his strategy perfectly - in his response to Netanyahu's speech at the UN yesterday:
Chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said, “There’s a saying that if you don’t stop a man who is lying after 24 hours, the lies turn into facts. That’s what happened to Netanyahu.”This saying is Erekat's credo!
He lies, not one reporter - even the interviewer from Israel Army Radio here - bothers to counter his lies in any timely fashion, and Erekat wins! His lies turn into facts for his audience, or at the very least they are considered a legitimate part of the "narrative." He literally lives his life by the saying "if you don’t stop a man who is lying after 24 hours, the lies turn into facts."
No one has the guts to tell him that he is a liar to his face and list all his lies, chapter and verse. And it is a very long list.
Erekat knows that once he puts his lies out there, no one will counter him - after all, he is a "moderate" and a "peacemaker," and reporters aren't conditioned to believe that a soft-spoken man in a suit who is considered a "moderate" will lie right to their faces.
There is literally no negative repercussion to Erekat's constant lies. So...why shouldn't he continue them?
(By the way, for all the PLO officials who railed against Bibi's "lies," not one of them actually cited any.)