Maen Rashid Areikat

Maen Rashid Areikat (also spelled as Erikat or Erekat; born October 12, 1960) is a Palestinian diplomat and former chief of the PLO Delegation in Washington DC.

He started working for the Palestinian National Authority in 1998, first at the Negotiations Affairs Department (NAD) while serving as its Director-General until March 2008.

In 2011, USA Today published remarks by Areikat made during a meeting with reporters sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor, in which he stated that "After the experience of the last 44 years of military occupation and all the conflict and friction, I think it would be in the best interest of the two people to be separated," a statement which was taken by Elliot Abrams to mean the removal of Jews from an independent State of Palestine.

[1] The Center for American Progress found Areikat's previous comments to Tablet Magazine also endorsing population transfer[2] to be "troubling" and similar to the views of then-Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.

"[4] Areikat also subsequently clarified his remarks in a commentary to The Huffington Post, maintaining his support for a secular government but rejecting "persons who are amid an occupation, who are in my land illegally".