Saeb Erekat under pressure to resign because of Schabas affair

PA officials are blaming PLO chief negotiator Saeb Erekat for his role in forcing the resignation of William Schabas from the UNHRC's commission of inquiry/kangaroo court on the Gaza war.

There are rumors that Erekat might resign for his role in this affair.

The sources say that since the PLO had paid Schabas for legal work, he was somehow forced to lie to the UNHRC about not having any financial ties to any party under investigation in order to become the head of the commission. They are blaming Erekat for not foreseeing this issue. 

Apparently Erekat should have been positioning Schabas to be able to do much more damage against Israel instead of burning his potential influence with a measly $1300 for an unimportant paper that ended up torpedoing his role in the upcoming UNHRC report. 

If it wasn't for Erekat's paying Schabas, the notoriously anti-Israel lawyer would have remained in his role to craft the pre-ordained anti-Israel UNHRC document under the pretense of objectivity.

The critics say that Erekat has been boasting about the PLO negotiations unit's ties with Western legal experts such as Schabas rather than keeping them low-key and allowing the sympathetic Westerners to one day take over important anti-Israel roles in international bodies under the pretext of objectivity.

Schabas was already well-known for his anti-Israel positions before this entire affair. Some 65 anti-Israel NGOs signed a letter to the UNHRC supporting Schabas (or Christine Chinkin) to be the "Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967" to replace the notoriously anti-Israel Richard Falk. 

Given that Erekat had already pretended to resign from his role and yet still remains in it, I somehow doubt that he will resign over this. 

(h/t Anne)