Erekat Warns Israel: Dire Consequences For Depriving Palestinians Of Propaganda If He Survives COVID

Survival in defiance of the odds facing such an immunocompromised patient will indicate increased likelihood of foul play.

Jerusalem, October 22 – A high-ranking Palestinian official undergoing treatment at a leading Israeli medical facility threatened negative outcomes for the Jewish State in the even that he recovers from his current viral respiratory infection, given that such a recovery would remove from his people the opportunity to accuse Israel of assassinating him.

Saeb Erekat took several moments before entering an induced coma Monday at Hadassah Medical Center in southwestern Jerusalem, to warn Israel against allowing him to survive his treatment for SARS-CoV-2. The onetime chief negotiator for the Palestinians with Israel demanded that he be allowed to expire under Israeli medical auspices so that Palestinians get the chance to blame Israel for his death just as they did for that of Yasser Arafat in 2004, and use that accusation to incite further violence. If he lives, Erekat warned, Palestinians will become enraged that Israel deprived them of that propaganda pretext, and resort to violence.

“On behalf of my Palestinian brethren and the entire Palestinian national movement, I hereby warn Israel not to make the grave mistake of letting me survive this ordeal,” he stated. “The expected outcomes for someone in my condition are dim, and any outcome that defies those expectations will immediately lead my people to suspect a malicious hand in it, with consequences for whom the enemy alone will bear the blame.”

Erekat, 65, received a lung transplant two years ago; as part of the effort to prevent his body’s rejection of the organs, Erekat undergoes a regimen to keep his immune system suppressed. That regimen makes him even more vulnerable to the ravages of the COVID pathogen than even other late-middle-age and senior patients, already a high-risk group. Survival in defiance of those odds will indicate increased likelihood of foul play.

Observers notes that a similar dynamic has taken hold vis-à-vis the Gaza Strip, where Israeli military operations have killed not a single Palestinian this year even as agitators there have engaged in continued violent protest and incendiary-balloon launchings into Israeli territory. Palestinian propagandists have been forced to fall back on the tactic of labeling images from other conflicts, such as in Syria, as illustrating Israeli brutality.

Experts predict Israel will provide the finest medical care to Mr. Erekat in any case; he specifically requested a transfer from his home city of Jericho to Hadassah for that purpose. Erekat has himself accused Israel of mistreating Palestinian patients and has encouraged boycotts of Israel and Israeli institutions.

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