LOS ANGELES (AP) — Stanley K. Sheinbaum, a former economics professor whose drive for Mideast peace had him mingling with presidents, royalty and movie stars, has died. He was 96.

Sheinbaum died of heart disease on Monday at his home in the Brentwood neighborhood of Los Angeles, said his assistant, Marti Maniates.

Sheinbaum gave up teaching to devote himself to what he called his quest to “create a little peace and justice in this unjust world.”

He raised funds to defend Daniel Ellsberg during the military analyst’s trial for releasing the Pentagon Papers, a secret study of the Vietnam War.

Never one to shrink from controversy, Sheinbaum met with late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat in an unofficial diplomatic mission to bring peace to the Middle East. The meeting propelled him into headlines and sparked protests from Israelis and the American Jewish community.

“For a while, I was the most hated Jew in America … by other Jews anyway,” he said in his 2011 autobiography. But he added, “I didn’t waste time agonizing.”

Still, he acknowledged, his mission for peace failed.

Sheinbaum “was a tireless advocate whose courageous stances breathed life into monumental change on both the local and global stages,” Mayor Eric Garcetti said in a statement.

Sheinbaum’s causes ranged from reforming the LAPD to urging California universities to divest from their holdings in South Africa during apartheid.

His book, “Stanley K. Sheinbaum: A 20th Century Knight’s Quest for Peace, Civil Liberties and Economic Justice,” was written with a co-author when he was in his 90s. It contained book jacket testimonials from President Bill Clinton, Barbra Streisand, Jane Fonda and Norman Lear, who summed up his friend’s legacy by saying: “He’s addicted to fairness and justice.”