Saeb Erekat And a Crisis of Faith

Once again, the PA's chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, claims the Palestinians descended from Canaanites: “I am a proud son of the…

By February 06, 2014
Jericho

The destruction of Jericho

Once again, the PA’s chief negotiator, Saeb Erekat, claims the Palestinians descended from Canaanites:

“I am a proud son of the Canaanites who were there 5,500 years before Joshua bin Nun burned down the town of Jericho” he said in Munich last week.

That contradicts Maen Rashid Areikat, who wrote that the Palestinians lived under Canaanite occupation. It should also bode ill for Mahmoud Abbas, who last Christmas asserted that Jesus was a Palestinian.

But who thinks about these kinds of things? Certainly not the Western media, which never presses Erekat on his deceitful demonization, his Jenin blood libel, or his other outright lies. Reporters shrug their shoulders at most, then dutifully record the whopper, making sure they spell his name right.

That’s Erekat with an E.

How tall a tale does the man have to spin before the press corps has a crisis of faith in Erekat’s credibility?

Featured image: CC BY Foreign and Commonwealth Office via flickr

[sc:bottomsignup ]

© Divuach Ne’eman R”A, 2025

Pesach Benson

Pesach Benson

A Baltimore native, Pesach was with HonestReporting from 2011 to 2020. He edited the Israel Daily News Stream and authored the e-book, Red Lines: HonestReporting’s 8 Categories of Media Bias. Before moving to Israel in 1995, he worked as a reporter for the Baltimore Jewish Times. Pesach has a B.A. in political science from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County, where he was executive editor of the campus newspaper.

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