BBC cancels interview with Likud MK who wouldn’t mourn PA Erekat’s death

The Likud MK’s airtime was canceled after saying in a pre-interview that the Palestinian negotiator had promoted terrorism.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

British news giant BBC canceled an interview with Likud MK Sharren Haskel on the death of Palestinian Authority (PA) negotiator Saeb Erekat after she said he supported terrorism against Israel.

“There are people for whom it’s hard to hear the truth about Erekat,” Haskel tweeted Tuesday night.

The BBC had asked for the interview with the English-speaking MK but changed its mind when it became clear she wasn’t going to praise him.

“In a briefing call with me, I explained that although in English Erekat was portrayed as a peacemaker, in Arabic he promoted, funded, and pushed for an armed struggle against the State of Israel. In his last days, too, he fought the historic peace signed between Israel and the Arab states, which have finally recognized that the obstacle to peace is the Palestinians and not Israel,” she tweeted.

“When I went on to remind them of his statement that Israel’s position has always been ‘retreat’ and therefore the Palestinians can stick to their refusal, the researcher politely ended the conversation. After a few minutes they got back to me and informed me that the interview was canceled,” Haskel said.

Erekat, who attended American and British universities, spoke and wrote often in Western media as the decades-long chief negotiator for the PA in the on-again, off-again peace talks with Israel.

He constantly demonized and libeled the Jewish state, such as calling it in 2010 “an apartheid regime worse than that of South Africa.” This was when Israel built parallel roads in Judea and Samaria that Palestinians couldn’t travel on because of their constant shootings, and rock and Molotov-cocktail throwing attacks on the existing roads. He repeated his charges of apartheid as recently as January, in a Washington Post op-ed piece.

In perhaps his most infamous charge, when Israel initiated Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 in response to a massive Palestinian terrorist wave, he falsely accused the IDF of perpetrating a “massacre” and “war crime” in Jenin, saying that the refugee camp “is no longer in existence.”

The Palestinian death toll was between 53 and 56 people, most of whom were combatants.

More recently, Erekat, who was also secretary-general of the PLO’s Executive Committee, attacked every Trump administration move that was seen as supporting Israel, including its groundbreaking peace proposal, and said the president violated international law with his policies.

Most media outlets have uniformly praised Erekat as a steadfast proponent of peace through the two-state solution, including among Israel’s Left, despite his continuous vilification of the Jewish State .

Left-wing Israeli politicians have lauded him as well, including former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, who had sat opposite Erekat at the negotiating table.

“Saeb dedicated his life to his people,” she tweeted. She was “saddened” by his death, she said, and sent her “deepest condolences to the Palestinians and his family. He will be missed.”

BBCSaeb ErekatSharren HaskelTzipi Livni