CAMERA Prompts Washington Post Correction on PLO Official Saeb Erekat

After contact from CAMERA, The Washington Post changed a June 28, 2020 article which inaccurately claimed that a well-known Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) official was born in Jericho.

The Post’s dispatch, “Once an oasis of peace, Jericho now fears Israeli annexation,” by reporter Ruth Eglash, asserted that PLO official Saeb Erekat “was born in Jericho, located in the Jordan Valley, and can trace his family’s history in the biblical town back many generations.” However, this is incorrect.

In fact, as numerous sources have noted, Erekat was born in Abu Dis. As the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA) documented:

“Saeb Erekat’s family is Bedouin. According to Bedouin genealogy, the family is part of the Huweitat clan which originated in the Hejaz area of Saudi Arabia, arrived in Palestine from the south of Jordan, and settled in the village of Abu Dis in the early twentieth century.”

CAMERA informed Post staff that Erekat wasn’t born in Jericho and, what is more, the PLO apparatchik has a history of lying about his origins, having infamously claimed that Palestinian Arabs are descended from Canaanites.

Following contact from CAMERA, the Washington Post commendably issued a correction in their June 30, 2020 print edition. Additionally, on July 2, 2020, the newspaper added an addendum to their online story, noting: