By Taghreed Saadeh
The campaign recently relaunched under the banner of calling for the release of Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti from Israeli prisons appears, at its core, to be closer to a presidential election campaign than a rights-based or activist effort to end his detention. The media focuses on portraying him as “the leader who will save the Palestinian situation” and as enjoying broad consensus, despite the fact that calling for his release is a legitimate right for every Palestinian prisoner.
It is noticeable that, whether intentionally or not, the media promotes the impression that Barghouti is “the sole Palestinian leader,” even though the Palestinian people including myself, sympathize with all prisoners and consider them national symbols, not reducible to a single individual. The insistence on presenting him individually overlooks the fact that he is a leader within Fatah and upholds its principles and ideology.
Although some media coverage portrays him as being in conflict with Fatah, the movement itself treats him as one of its leaders, he is a member of the Central Committee, and Fatah covers the expenses of his campaign office. Moreover, Palestinian Ambassador Laila Shahid played a major role in the early stages of the campaign in France. This highlights a clear contradiction between Fatah’s support for him and the narrative portraying Barghouti as the sole leader capable of leading the Palestinian people without challenge.
Moqbel Barghouti, Marwan’s brother, stated that the family demands his release, emphasizing that Marwan, now 66 years old, deserves to spend the rest of his life with his grandchildren. Nevertheless, statements from the campaign continue to promote the idea that he is the Palestinian leader capable of leading the people alone, while others hint at tensions with Fatah, despite his membership in the movement and its central committee.
Ahmed Ghanem, director of Barghouti’s release campaign, explained in a podcast with the Mreej Foundation that internal elections within Fatah to choose a presidential candidate are not guaranteed, and that there must be agreement to present Marwan as the sole candidate. This raises the question, does Marwan not wish to compete internally, or is this a preemptive step by his campaign to pressure for his nomination as the only candidate?
A key question remains, does Ahmed Ghanem, well known for his strong opposition to Fatah, represent Marwan Barghouti in his positions, or are Ghanem’s stances being implicitly used to frame Barghouti? It is worth noting that Ghanem serves as Secretary of the Palestinian National Conference held in Doha, and Fatah and the Palestinian Authority view him as someone positioning himself as an alternative to the Palestine Liberation Organization. However, Ghanem has stressed that he has an independent personality and convictions, and that Barghouti’s campaign is not directly linked to his views.
The Palestinian people strive for democracy in their choices, and the next president must obtain legitimacy through ballot boxes, not through directed media campaigns imposing a single political direction.
Poll results are also being used to promote Barghouti’s popularity, although the Khalil al-Shuqaqi Center, which Israeli newspapers revealed was exploited to promote Hamas, was accused of manipulating previous poll results in favor of Hamas and against the Palestinian Authority, calling all such polls into question. The claim that Hamas bases would vote for Marwan is unrealistic, and close sources from the campaign denied any agreement with Hamas to support his candidacy.
The release of Marwan and all prisoners remains a broad Palestinian popular demand. According to his brother Moqbel, when Marwan was arrested, the aim of the interrogation was to target the late President Yasser Arafat and to implicate him in supporting the Second Intifada. The court that sentenced him was, as Muwaffaq points out, an illegitimate tribunal, and Marwan was a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council at the time. This forms the basis for any campaign advocating his release.
Marwan Barghouti was sentenced by an Israeli court in 2004 to five life terms plus forty years, after his arrest in Ramallah on April 15, 2002. Israel charged him with involvement in the killing of five Israelis, participation in four other operations, membership in a “terrorist organization,” and providing weapons, funding, and instructions for carrying out military operations. Barghouti denied these charges, insisting that his role was purely political and unrelated to military actions.
What is happening today, however, marks a transition from a human rights oriented effort to a partially electoral campaign treating Marwan as the sole leader capable of leading and saving the Palestinian people. This undermines the principle of equality among prisoners and marginalizes the Palestinian people’s right to choose their leadership through elections, not through political or media pressures.
143 Total Count
