Source: TOI.com

After her husband was passed over for release last month, Fadwa Barghouti says in 1st-ever interview with Israeli press that his ability to unify Palestinians behind 2-state platform can stabilize region

After months of crisscrossing the region and the globe, Fadwa Barghouti has seen her campaign to secure the release of her husband, prominent Palestinian prisoner Marwan Barghouti, again came up short.

The 66-year-old inmate, sentenced by an Israeli court in 2004 to five life sentences plus 40 years for helping plan deadly attacks during the Second Intifada, was not included on the list of nearly 2,000 Palestinians released in exchange for 20 hostages in a deal last month aimed at ending the two-year war against the Hamas terror group in Gaza.

Despite his prominence in the rival Fatah movement, Marwan Barghouti was at the top of the list of prisoners Hamas sought to free, underlining the widespread adoration he enjoys among Palestinians.

A former secretary general of the party in the West Bank, Barghouti enjoyed support before he was convicted, but he has gained legendary status in the two decades that have followed.

His popularity is thought to have contributed to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s decision not to release him in October. But with Barghouti seen by some today as a potential game-changing peacemaker, his appeal is reaching far outside Palestinian circles and may go as far as Washington, with some speculating that US President Donald Trump could back calls for clemency.

“I really hope President Trump will press for the release of Marwan because he represents a future of peace and stability,” Fadwa Barghouti told The Times of Israel this week.

It was her first-ever interview with an Israeli news outlet and an attempt to reach an audience that views her husband as an arch-terrorist.

During the lengthy conversation, Fadwa Barghouti made the case for her husband’s release, insisting that his support for Palestinian “self-defense against Israeli occupation” does not contradict his desire for eventual coexistence. She argued that despite all he has endured, Marwan’s commitment to a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 lines has not wavered.

“He views the two-state solution as the way to move forward and live in peace,” Fadwa Barghouti said, referring to a framework that was gradually losing favor in the eyes of Israelis even before October 7.

Marwan Barghouti’s popularity on the Palestinian street and his support for a two-state solution have led some key stakeholders abroad to view him as one of the only Palestinian figures who can credibly advance a peace process with the Jewish state.

Multiple mediating countries made direct pleas to Israel for his release during ceasefire talks, three senior Arab diplomats said. But those overtures were flatly rejected, with one of those diplomats saying that the idea was never seriously entertained by Jerusalem.

Asked for comment on the potential of Barghouti being released, an Israeli government spokesperson sufficed with branding him “a convicted murderer and terrorist.”

But momentum for his release was re-energized two days after the October 13 prisoner and hostage swap when Trump was asked by Time magazine whether Israel should free Barghouti.

“I [was] literally being confronted with that question about 15 minutes before you called. That was the question. That was my question of the day. So I’ll be making a decision,” Trump responded.

The White House declined to elaborate on Trump’s comments, but they immediately sparked speculation of a renewed effort — led by the US — to free Barghouti, just as his wife’s campaign seemed to have run out of air.

But Fadwa Barghouti says her husband’s condition in prison is deteriorating, leaving a figure many see as a linchpin of Israeli-Palestinian peace hopes withering away instead of leading the sides toward a conciliation she insists that he believes in.

“He still envisions peace on this land and a better life for everyone on it,” she said.

‘I belong to Palestine’

Fadwa Barghouti said her husband was already politically active in Fatah by the time they met and had, from the age of 15, served several stints in prison, where he had begun to pick up Hebrew and read avidly about Jewish and Israeli history.

Led by Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat, Fatah comprised both a political movement and armed wings, the latter of which carried out countless attacks on both Israeli civilians and soldiers. Among them was the 1978 Coastal Road massacre, in which Fatah gunmen hijacked a bus and killed 38 civilians, including 13 children, and wounded scores more. There is no evidence that Barghouti had any involvement beyond being an active member of Fatah at the time.

Barghouti was never convicted before 2004, but his wife said his earlier stints in prison were for throwing stones and Molotov cocktails at Israeli soldiers who were raiding his village when he was a teen and later for student activism on behalf of Fatah at Birzeit University, where the two got to know each other.

When he asked for her hand, Barghouti warned that it would not be an easy marriage.

“He told me he belongs to the Palestinian people and that our journey would be a complicated one because he wanted to struggle against the occupation until it ends,” Fadwa recalled.

“He promised to be a loyal husband and a loving father — which he has been — and said that after the occupation ends, we would live a normal life,” she continued. “I told him then that Palestine is not only his and that I too want to give for the cause.”

“Even though I’m so proud of him and our family, I feel bad for my children who didn’t have a choice in all of this,” Fadwa added.

Over the years, Barghouti rose to prominence within Fatah, leading Israel to exile him to Jordan in 1987.

The family returned to the West Bank in 1993 as part of the Oslo Accords, which established the Palestinian Authority and were aimed at reaching a final-status framework for Israeli-Palestinian peace.

While he supported that initiative, Barghouti — by then an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council — argued that Israel was not living up to its obligations, such as further withdrawals from the West Bank and Gaza and a halt to settlement expansion.

That argument allowed him to justify continuing armed resistance against Israel, even as others in the PA forswore fighting. However, he made clear that he only supported violence in areas the Palestinians claimed for their own state and not inside most of sovereign Israel.

By 2000, he was not only secretary-general of Fatah in the West Bank, but also seen as a top figure in the Tanzim, Fatah’s armed militia, a position which Israel alleges also made him a key player in the activities of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, a Fatah-linked terror group. His wife pushed back on this framing, insisting that Barghouti was a politician, not a military man involved in planning attacks.

As failed peace talks gave way to the deadly violence of the Second Intifada in late 2000, both the Tanzim and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades took leading roles in carrying out dozens of attacks on Israeli civilians and soldiers on both sides of the Green Line.

Captured in 2002, Barghouti was charged with helping plan 37 attacks against Israelis during the Second Intifada. He refuted the charges, but also refused to present a defense during trial to avoid the appearance of legitimizing the Israeli court.

He was acquitted on the majority of charges but found guilty on five counts of murder, including over a shooting attack at a Tel Aviv seafood restaurant in which three Israelis were killed and dozens injured.

According to the Israeli indictment, Barghouti was aware of the attack, which was planned by a direct subordinate. Notified that the attacker had been dispatched, Barghouti “authorized the execution of the attack, but requested that it not be carried out within Israel but within boundaries of the Judea and Samaria area,” the indictment read, referring to the West Bank. Apparently, this request was not acceded to.

He was also convicted of involvement in a shooting attack at a gas station in the Givat Ze’ev settlement that killed one Israeli, a shooting attack near the Ma’ale Adumim settlement in which a Greek Orthodox monk was killed, and an attempted suicide bombing targeting Jerusalem’s Malha Mall.

Fadwa, herself a lawyer, branded the arrest and prosecution of her husband as illegal under international law, saying that Israel violated what she views as her husband’s parliamentary immunity by conducting the arrest and then transferring him from the West Bank to Israeli territory for his detention and trial. Israel maintains that it reserves the right to arrest Palestinians anywhere if they’re involved in attacks on its citizens.

She pointed to a report by an observer of Barghouti’s trial from the Inter-Parliamentary Union, which concluded that it was not conducted fairly.

“They had decided from the start that he was guilty,” Fadwa alleged.

Both Fadwa and the IPU report noted that the prosecution’s witnesses did not testify in court against Barghouti or provide evidence that he had directed the attacks in question. Instead, the prosecution relied on notes from interrogators detailing confessions, which many of the witnesses said were obtained under duress or that they were coerced into signing Hebrew documents that they didn’t understand.

But Israeli prosecutors also relied on phone records showing calls between Barghouti and individuals more directly involved in carrying out the attacks, which they said proved the Fatah leader’s involvement.

Those defending the trial’s legitimacy note that Barghouti wasn’t convicted on all charges and that the verdict was handed down based solely on the evidence against him.

His wife said that the ultimate result was another guilty verdict against Palestinians, who are convicted in Israeli courts nearly 100% of the time, according to rights groups. “If you’re a Palestinian, you’re guilty.”

Fadwa also maintained that the real motivation behind her husband’s arrest was to “criminalize the Palestinian struggle and its leadership.”

Despite Barghouti’s support for violence in a non-peaceful Palestinian struggle, Fadwa claimed that her husband had “always been clear that he is against the targeting of civilians and that they cannot be a target of resistance.”

However, he has also argued that Israeli settlers should not be viewed as civilians. Fadwa said her husband was referring to those who are armed and “part of the occupation.”

Regarding Israeli civilians living inside pre-1967 Israel, though, Barghouti described himself as an advocate of a two-state solution, including justice for descendants of Palestinians who fled their homes inside what is today Israel during the War of Independence.

“I still seek peaceful coexistence between the equal and independent countries of Israel and Palestine based on full withdrawal from Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 and a just resolution to the plight of Palestinian refugees pursuant to UN resolutions,” Barghouti wrote in a 2002 op-ed in the Washington Post three months before his arrest. “I do not seek to destroy Israel but only to end its occupation of my country.”

Fadwa rejected the idea that her husband’s support for a two-state solution could be a feint toward Israel eventually being supplanted, saying he is guided by international law, which only views the territories beyond the 1967 lines as occupied.

“Marwan has said we need to differentiate between our homeland and the state, with the state only being on the 1967 borders,” she said.

Unrecognizably gaunt, but still making jokes

The only contact Fadwa has had with her husband over the past several years has been through lawyers, who have been periodically allowed to visit Barghouti. Before October 7, 2023, the couple was able to exchange letters, but since Israel banned family visits to Palestinian security prisoners messages have only been passed through word of mouth.

Barghouti has also been held in solitary confinement since October 7, according to his family and fellow inmates who have recently been freed. “He’s a leader inside prison, and [Israeli authorities] wanted to make sure he wouldn’t be able to boost morale for the other prisoners,” his wife said.

Israel’s Prison Service wouldn’t comment on his exact status beyond maintaining that he’s being treated according to the law.

But his family charges that he has been beaten four times by guards over the past two years, causing broken ribs along with other injuries. National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir, who oversees prisons, said last month that he was “proud that Barghouti’s conditions have changed drastically” during his tenure.

Barghouti was last seen publicly in an August video leaked by Ben Gvir’s office in which the far-right minister can be seen taunting a gaunt and significantly thinner-looking Barghouti in the latter’s prison cell.

Fadwa said she could not initially recognize her husband in the clip.

“It was very painful to watch,” she said. “In the end, I recognized him by his eyes.”

“But the scene also perfectly depicts the situation that we’re in: Ben Gvir represents the occupation and the current Israeli government, while Marwan represents justice and freedom,” she asserted.

Barghouti was granted a visit from his Israeli attorney earlier this month, and the lawyer reported to the family that he was in good spirits, despite his deteriorating physical condition.

“He was still making jokes to lighten the mood,” Fadwa recalled. “He was relieved to hear that the war had ended and has been thinking of new initiatives to help the Palestinian people.”

Fadwa made sure that the lawyer passed along recent family updates and a message of hope about the “many parties and countries” calling for his release, creating what she views as a “legitimate opportunity” for that to take place.

‘A glimmer of hope’

Fadwa was hesitant to discuss that opportunity in detail, fearing that doing so would harm any chance of her husband’s release, for which she has been campaigning for decades.

But she said her family is in constant contact with political leaders in the region and beyond, holding meetings in recent months with European and Palestinian officials as well as foreign ministers from the Middle East.

“Considerable efforts have been made, especially by the mediators, to secure his release,” she said, referring to Egypt and Qatar, who were key negotiators of the Gaza ceasefire along with the US and Turkey.

“I, of course, was very disappointed that Marwan wasn’t released [in last month’s deal], but through my follow-up meetings and communication with politicians, I see there is still a glimmer of hope,” Fadwa said.

She pointed to Trump’s comments to Time magazine as restoring her faith when her confidence was at a low point, crediting “great efforts by regional countries and other partners of the Palestinian cause” for getting the issue onto the administration’s agenda.

Fadwa didn’t purport to have direct contact with senior Trump officials, but she said her family has held regular meetings with US diplomats over the years to discuss Barghouti’s case and that prominent stakeholders have also reached out to Washington on their behalf.

Asked about comparisons that have been made between her husband and American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. — who preached nonviolence — as well as former South African president Nelson Mandela — who supported armed resistance against apartheid before later embracing a more peaceful path — Fadwa didn’t reject the premise.

“Those who called Mandela a terrorist ran to take pictures with him after he was released,” she said.

But many in Israel have continued to reject the view of Barghouti as a peacemaker.

“Whoever has committed the crime of killing innocents, and it doesn’t matter whom — even a Jew — his place is not among the freed and not among free people, but behind a lock and bars,” Jamal Barakat, whose brother Salim Barakat was killed in the Tel Aviv attack, said in 2017. “Anybody who tries to soften it, tries to turn or spin it some way as some kind of goal or other, it is not acceptable at all.”

The unifier

Despite being in prison, Barghouti consistently polls as a top choice for PA president to replace current Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas, 90, who has clung to power since Arafat’s death in 2004 despite being deeply unpopular.

According to Fadwa, foreign officials she meets with view Barghouti as a “stabilizing factor,” pointing to his ability to address what is seen as one of the key obstacles to Israeli-Palestinian peace: internal Palestinian political divisions.

She pointed out that in 2006, he spearheaded the so-called Prisoners Document, which for the first time saw representatives from Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other Palestinian terror groups sign onto the Fatah position in favor of negotiations with Israel to secure a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 lines, with East Jerusalem as the Palestinian capital.

Critics note that the document does not explicitly recognize Israel, and backs Palestinians’ right to “resist… [the] occupation by various means,” which they say could include violence, though Barghouti was credited with insisting on a clause qualifying that resistance as “focusing” on the area captured in 1967.

Fatah and Hamas remain bitter rivals, and most efforts to bring them together have seen only lukewarm success. Israelis say that a Fatah embrace of the terror group would disqualify it as a possible peace partner, but for Palestinians, unity is a prerequisite for any peace effort to have buy-in among the populace.

As for concerns that his desire for unity outweighs his opposition to Hamas, Fadwa said the unity her husband seeks would be under the PLO charter, which requires members to recognize Israel.

“Marwan believes it will be a source of stability to bring all of the factions into one system, rather than having rebels on the outside,” she said.

According to Fadwa, Barghouti’s ability to unify Palestinians under a two-state platform is what underpins the Netanyahu government’s opposition to his release.

A senior diplomat from an Arab mediating country described Netanyahu’s opposition to releasing Barghouti as part of his decades-long effort to keep the Palestinian factions divided. Critics of Netanyahu say the premier sought to prop up Hamas as a counterweight to the Fatah-dominated PA, including by having Qatar funnel hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas-controlled Gaza in the years leading up to the October 7 attack, during which he also worked to kneecap the PA.

The prime minister has maintained that he allowed the Qatari aid into the Strip to prevent a humanitarian crisis.

Fadwa noted that her husband had not shied from voicing criticism of his own Fatah party, including Abbas’s inability to go through with elections for almost two decades.

“Marwan believes in democracy with rule of law, good governance, social justice, women’s rights and youth participation, and he has been outspoken in criticizing the PA leadership when they have not advanced these values,” she said.

Talking hope

In 2008, a joint Hebrew University and Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research poll found that 78 percent of Israelis supported freeing Barghouti in exchange for kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit. The poll also found 45% backed his release so he could take part of Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, up from 34% three years earlier.

At the time, 31% of respondents thought Barghouti could successfully reach a compromise agreement with Israel, with another 34% saying Abbas was better suited to the task. Only 22% thought neither could succeed.

Today, that optimism has almost completely dissipated, but according to Fadwa, many Israelis continue to support Barghouti’s release as a key step toward reaching an agreement, especially those who  have gotten to know him or judged him based on his own statements, rather than the “propaganda” of others.

She pointed out dozens of Israeli politicians, security officials and peace activists with whom Barghouti interacted both before and during his stints in prison. Some of them have called for his release.

Former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon told the Haaretz newspaper last year that Israel should release Barghouti because “Marwan is the only Palestinian leader who can be elected and lead a united and legitimate Palestinian leadership toward a path of mutually agreed separation from Israel.”

Support for his release has extended to the Jewish Diaspora and has included prominent figures such as World Jewish Congress chairman Ron Lauder, The Times of Israel revealed last month. Lauder subsequently called Barghouti “the right leader” for a two-state solution.

“His message to Israelis is that future generations will be the ones to pay the price for the absence of peace,” Fadwa said. “Instead of settlements, occupation and violence, it’s time to talk about hope. It’s time to talk about everyone living in peace, security and dignity.”

Though the Gaza ceasefire agreement did not result in her husband’s release, she still sees in it the seeds of hope for “freedom [to] be expanded” to all Palestinians.

“This is vital — humanly, morally, and for a future of freedom and peace — without suffering or killing on either side, with children safe and unharmed,” she said.