Reading through the litanies spouted by Saeb Erekat, secre­tary-general of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO), it is difficult to find an instance in which the rhetoric does not evoke contradictions.

Erekat, who was part of a delegation travelling to Washing­ton ahead of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s meeting with his US counterpart, Donald Trump, managed to consolidate the fragmentation of the Palestinian territories using a simple formula characterising the international diplomatic agenda.

Three aspects are normally invoked: Israeli settlement expansion, the two-state para­digm and purported US efforts to renew negotiations. A recent variation uttered by Erekat accuses Israel of “sabotaging US efforts to renew the peace process.” To affirm the duplicity, Erekat condemned the Israeli imposition of “the colonial enterprise” while invoking adherence to the two-state illusion. Read more