Washington Report, April 2006, pages 32-33, 45

Special Report

Marwan Barghouti: Ready for a Hero’s Role

By Richard H. Curtiss

MARWAN Barghouti is the man who could unite the Palestinians and far-sighted Israelis. He could play the same role as Nelson Mandela did in South Africa. Like Mandela, who served 27 years of a life sentence, this popular Palestinian leader has been imprisoned by an apartheid government.

During the first intifada, which lasted from 1987 until 1993, Barghouti was an optimist. The second intifada, which erupted in September 2000, however, made him realize that blind hope was not enough and that naiveté was in fact the enemy of realism. Now Barghouti is in prison, and Palestinians and Israelis are teetering on the edge of another bloodbath.

There is little evidence of how ordinary Israelis feel about Barghouti—or, for that matter, about any other Palestinian who could stop the bloodshed. But an Israeli court—after what prominent Israeli writer and activst Uri Avnery described as a “show trial” in every sense of the word—sentenced Barghouti, a self-proclaimed freedom fighter, to five life sentences. The evidence against him was largely manufactured and Barghouti wisely refrained from offering any defense at all, saying the trial was illegal from start to finish. In his critical commentary on Barghouti’s trial, Avnery observed sarcastically, “This is how the ‘only democracy in the Middle East’ looks now.”

Marwan Barghouti was born on June 6, 1959 in the village of Kobar, near Ramallah, where orchards of olive trees date back hundreds of years. On his eighth birthday Israel conquered the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and began its illegal military occupation.

When Barghouti was 15 he joined Fatah, the secular Palestinian liberation movement. In 1978 he spent four years in an Israeli prison because Fatah was then a “banned” organization. While incarcerated he successfully completed his studies for a high school diploma, and also learned both Hebrew and English. Six months before his discharge he became engaged to his fiancée, Fadwa, and upon his release they were married. They subsequently had four children: al-Qassam (16), Ruba (15), Shaaraf (13) and Arab (11). 

In 1983 Barghouti entered Birzeit University. Due to Israel’s military closures and random arrests, however, it took him 11 years to earn his B.A. in history and political science. During his university years he led the Fatah students’ faction and organized numerous political activities on campus. His studies were disrupted when, in 1985, he was arrested and placed in administrative detention (without charges or due process) for six months. A year before his graduation Barghouti was banished by the Israeli authorities to Jordan for “inciting the struggle against the Israeli occupation.”

From Jordan he played an important role in organizing various political aspects of the first Palestinian uprising, which erupted in 1987, soon after his expulsion. He acted as a central liaison between the exiled Palestine Organization (PLO) and Fatah inside the occupied territories. In 1989 Barghouti became a member of Fatah’s Revolutionary Council.

In 1994, at the height of the enthusiasm that reigned after the signing of the Oslo accords between the PLO and Israel, Barghouti was allowed to return to Ramallah. Named Fatah’s secretary-general in the occupied West Bank, Barghouti at that time was a staunch proponent of the peace process, which he believed would eventually lead to a complete Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories and the establishment of an independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital. Barghouti fostered strong relations with Israeli members of the peace camp, and even with right-wing Israelis, who were ready to accept an historic compromise with the Palestinians: the just and peaceful coexistence of two separate, sovereign states, without Israeli settlements.

Domestically Barghouti, elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council in 1996, gained pre-eminence as a determined fighter against corruption, and for the sanctity of human rights and social and economic justice. The Palestinian women’s movement considered him a valued ally in its own struggle for emancipation. Meanwhile he pursued graduate studies at Birzeit, earning his M.A. in international relations in 1998.

That year, however, he realized that, while Israel was talking peace, it was simultaneously continuing to build illegal settlements in the occupied territories, diminishing the land over which negotiations were being conducted. Barghouti and his colleagues then called for a halt to all political negotiations until Israel stopped its settlement activities and committed itself to ending the occupation. He then began leading demonstrations throughout the West Bank which refocused national attention on the goals of the Palestinian cause.

During the second intifada—provoked by then-candidate Ariel Sharon’s incursion to Jerusalem’s sacred Haram Al Sharif and Israel’s bloody response to the ensuing protests—Barghouti noted: “We tried seven years of intifada without negotiations, and then seven years of negotiations without the intifada, perhaps it is time to try both simultaneously.” His oft-quoted statement summarized what most Palestinian political observers agreed: Israel must be compelled into accepting Palestinian independence. There must be supporting acts of defiance, resistance and cultural expression of Palestinian national will, Barghouti maintained.

Barghouti’s gradual transformation from a committed believer in dialogue to an outspoken advocate of a full-fledged struggle against the Israeli occupation led to his recognition as a prominent leader of the al-Aqsa intifada. He had come to realize that “cosmetic” negotiations were designed to drag on in order to buy time for Israeli grabbing of more Palestinian land and further cementing of its military occupation. Barghouti therefore called for “escalating” the intifada in order to convince Israel that peace cannot be achieved through occupation.

In August 2001, Barghouti narrowly survived an Israeli assassination attempt when an Israeli missile hit his bodyguard’s car, and Barghouti was severely injured. However, he vowed, even if he and other leaders were killed, the struggle against the occupation would continue.

On April 15, 2002 Israeli troops arrested Barghouti at a home near Yasser Arafat’s complex in Ramallah. Before they could open fire, however, Barghouti stepped outside and surrendered, thus thwarting a second assassination attempt.

On May 20, 2004 Barghouti was convicted of ordering a 2001 West Bank attack that killed a Greek Orthodox monk of Israeli citizenship and two attacks in 2002, one killing an Israeli at the Jewish settlement of Givat Zeev in 2002 and and the other killing three people at Tel Aviv’s Seafood Market restaurant. Barghouti also was convicted of one count each of attempted murder, and membership in a terrorist organization. He was acquitted of 21 counts of murder in 33 other attacks.

Throughout his trial, Barghouti largely refused to offer a defense, arguing instead that the court lacked jurisdiction and that the trial itself was illegal. While supporting armed resistance to the Israeli occupation, Barghouti said he condemned attacks on civilians.

In late 2004, following Yasser Arafat’s death in November, Barghouti announced his intention to run for president of the Palestinian Authority in the upcoming January 2005 election. On Nov. 26, 2004, following pressure from the Fatah faction to support the candidacy of Mahmoud Abbas, it appeared he had decided to withdraw from the contest. Just before the Dec. 1 deadline, however, Barghouti’s wife registered him as an independent candidate.

On Dec. 12, 2004, again facing pressure from Fatah to withdraw in favor of Abbas, Barghouti abandoned his candidacy and threw his support behind Abbas, citing his desire to maintain Palestinian unity. On Dec. 14, 2005, Barghouti announced the formation of a new political party, Al-Mustaqbal (“The future”), mainly composed of members of Fatah’s “Young Guard.”

Marwan Barghouti—who, despite his imprisonment, recently was re-elected as a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council—remains in Palestine’s political limelight. In a Feb. 2 radio interview with talk show host John Batchelor, Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, who is also his lawyer, discussed her husband’s inability to assume office and denied entertaining an Israeli suggestion of a prisoner swap for the spy Jonathan J. Pollard to secure freedom for both men.

Three years ago Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote in words that still are true today: “Israel must return to the so-called Green Line—the border before the 1967 Six-Day War. It must dismantle most of the settlements. It must do this because occupation is corrupting and, in the long run, impossible. The more Israel expands or retains settlements, the more it gets stuck in a quagmire where the enemy is everywhere…

“Instead of withdrawing to where Jews are a clear majority, it continues to cling to settlements where Jews are outnumbered. Every settlement, every day of occupation, puts Israel in greater and greater danger. Every settlement is a provocation.”

SIDEBAR

A Sampling of Barghouti’s Noteworthy Comments

The Washington Post, Jan. 15, 2002:

“I am not a terrorist, but neither am I a pacifist. I am simply a regular guy from the Palestinian street advocating only what every other oppressed person has advocated—the right to help myself in the absence of help from anywhere else.”

“The lack of Israeli security is born of the lack of Palestinian freedom. Israel will have security only after the end of occupation, not before. Once Israel and the rest of the world understand this fundamental truth, the way forward becomes clear: End the occupation, allow the Palestinians to live in freedom and let the independent and equal neighbors of Israel and Palestine negotiate a peaceful future with close economic and cultural ties.”

“The only way for Israelis to have security is, quite simply, to end the 35-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Israelis must abandon the myth that it is possible to have peace and occupation at the same time, that peaceful coexistence is possible between slave and master. The lack of Israeli security is born of the lack of Palestinian freedom. Israel will have security only after the end of occupation, not before.”

“Let us not forget, we Palestinians have recognized Israel on 78 percent of historic Palestine. It is Israel that refuses to acknowledge Palestine’s right to exist on the remaining 22 percent of land occupied in 1967. And yet it is the Palestinians who are accused of not compromising and of missing opportunities. Frankly, we are tired of always taking the blame for Israeli intransigence when all we are seeking is the implementation of international law.”

Israeli Court Session of Aug. 14, 2002:

“Everyone in this world knows well that Marwan Barghouti struggles for peace. I am a man of peace and I have done everything for peace between the [Israelis and Palestinians]. I believe the optimal solution is two states for two peoples…Israelis should put an end to the Israeli [military] occupation, to the [Israeli] policy assassinations, to the [military]curfews, to house demolitions…Peace is only achieved by ending the occupation.”

“What matters most to us is not our personal freedom [from incarceration] but our people’s emancipation…I am willing to pay with my freedom for my people’s freedom, for its independence.

“Whatever [the Israeli occupation forces] do, whatever aggression they carry out against the Palestinian people, they will not be able to break our people’s will…they cannot deter us from carrying on our struggle for freedom and independence.”

“I am suffering enormously after interrogation, torture and humiliation. Thousands of Palestinian [political] prisoners are experiencing the same conditions…but we shall not be frustrated [in our struggle], nor shall we succumb to Israeli terrorism.”

“I am telling the Israelis: only peace brings security to both peoples. The Israeli occupation must end,…the Israelis are paying a high price for their government’s policies.”

Interview with Al-Ahram Weekly, October 2000

“The Israelis are negotiating on one hand and building their settlements and creating new facts on the ground on the other. Those times are over. Palestinians will never, ever go back to this stage again.”

Interview in Media Monitors Network, Aug. 7, 2001

“We are talking about the 1967 borders. We recognize Israel, and we constantly repeat that. The question is not if we recognize Israel, but if Israel recognizes us. That is the question.”

“What the Palestinians are asking is for the international community to send international forces to protect the Palestinian people and observe the full Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories because any solution which will not lead to an end of the Israeli occupation will not work on the ground.”

“For 20 years the Americans insisted that the PLO accept Israel’s right to exist as well as U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, and we did that. Now the Americans ask the Palestinians to make compromises on these resolutions and to accept the Israeli conditions for peace. I think the Americans should look for their long-term interests in the region and realize that they have many interests greater than Israel. They cannot continue to ignore the Arab nation of more than 300 million people as well as a billion Muslims all over the world for the sake of these 4 million Jews in Israel. It’s time for the Americans to start being fair in their policies toward the Palestinians.”

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