Marwan Barghouti is a terrorist, convicted of killing five Israeli civilians during the Second Intifada, and organizing much of the terror campaign through his control of the Tanzim group in the West Bank.
Prof. Miriam Elman previously wrote a detailed profile of Barghouti, his terrorist past and political future, Terrorist Serving Multiple Life Sentences for Murder May be Next Palestinian President:
Barghouti (56)—a one-time peace activist who initially supported the Oslo Accords—served as the head of the Tanzim, one of Fatah’s armed terrorist factions, and was the founder of, and senior official in, the terrorist group known as the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade.Considered among the driving forces behind the bloody second intifada, he was convicted in 2004 for multiple murders and attempted murders.According to the charges against him, he was a key orchestrator of a series of deadly suicide terror attacks from 2000-2001. Among other attacks, he bears direct responsibility for the killing of three Israelis in a shooting spree at a Tel Aviv seafood restaurant and an attack outside of Jerusalem in which a Greek Orthodox monk was killed.As we noted in a prior post, there’s evidence that he was also an accomplice in the horrific Sbarro Pizzeria bombing, where 15 people—a majority of them children—lost their lives and scores more were injured, many severely.At his trial, Barghouti expressed no remorse for his crimes and refused to recognize the court as legally qualified to judge him….Over the years, he’s stated many times that there can be no peace with Israel without the ‘right of return’—declarations that have no basis in international law, upend the two-state solution, and deny the Jewish people the right to their own nation-state.Nor in his many writings, speeches, and interviews has Barghouti ever denounced violence—including terrorism. In 2014, he was reportedly given a week of solitary confinement after calling for the renewal of an armed intifada.
Palestinian Media Watch provides details on Barghouti’s terror activities:
Marwan Barghouti is currently serving 5 life sentences for orchestrating three shooting attacks that killed 5 people: one attack in Jerusalem (June 12, 2001) in which Greek monk Tsibouktsakis Germanus was murdered by terrorist Ismail Radaida and another unidentified terrorist, another attack at a gas station in Givat Zeev near Jerusalem (Jan. 15, 2002) in which Yoela Hen, 45, was murdered by terrorists led by Mohammed Matla, and one shooting and stabbing attack at the Sea Food Market restaurant in Tel Aviv (March 5, 2002) in which Eli Dahan, 53, Yosef Habi, 52, and Police Officer Sergeant-Major Salim Barakat, 33, were murdered by terrorist Ibrahim Hasouna. When arrested by Israel in 2002, Barghouti headed the Tanzim (Fatah terror faction). After he was convicted and imprisoned, he was re-elected member of the Palestinian Authority parliament.
The Israeli Indictment lists 33 specific attacks in which Barghouti was involved. He was convicted of three of those attacks, as Haaretz reported at the time:
The Tel Aviv District Court convicted former West Bank Tanzim commander Marwan Barghouti in the deaths of five people on Thursday.Barghouti was convicted of three terror attacks in which the five were murdered, as well as in another charge of attempted murder, membership in a terror organization and conspiring to commit a crime.However, the court acquitted him of 33 other murders with which he was charged, noting that there was no evidence that he was a full partner to those incidents.The prosecution on Thursday was seeking to sentence Barghouti to five life terms.Meanwhile, Israelis demonstrated in Tel Aviv after Barghouti’s hearing, holding up a poster of terror victims killed by Palestinians in the last few years.
Barghouti, apparently fearing he is becoming politically irrelevant, has organized a hunger strike said to include as many as 700 fellow imprisoned terrorists.
Guess where Barghouti placed the announcement of the launch of the hunger strike? In an Op-Ed in the NY Times, Why We Are on Hunger Strike in Israel’s Prisons:
Having spent the last 15 years in an Israeli prison, I have been both a witness to and a victim of Israel’s illegal system of mass arbitrary arrests and ill-treatment of Palestinian prisoners. After exhausting all other options, I decided there was no choice but to resist these abuses by going on a hunger strike.Some 1,000 Palestinian prisoners have decided to take part in this hunger strike, which begins today, the day we observe here as Prisoners’ Day. Hunger striking is the most peaceful form of resistance available. It inflicts pain solely on those who participate and on their loved ones, in the hopes that their empty stomachs and their sacrifice will help the message resonate beyond the confines of their dark cells.Decades of experience have proved that Israel’s inhumane system of colonial and military occupation aims to break the spirit of prisoners and the nation to which they belong, by inflicting suffering on their bodies, separating them from their families and communities, using humiliating measures to compel subjugation. In spite of such treatment, we will not surrender to it.
The Op-Ed is filled with distortions and lies, and never addresses why Barghouti is in prison. Barghouti is identified by The Times merely in political terms:
You could forgive the typical ignorant NY Times reader thinking Barghouti is in jail for his politics. As Israeli politician Yair Lapid writes at the Times of Israel, What the NY Times didn’t say about Barghouti:
The thing which stands out most – and is most infuriating – about the opinion piece published by Marwan Barghouti in the New York Times is the single sentence below the article identifying the author. “Marwan Barghouti is a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian,” it says dryly. That isn’t an error, that is an intentional deception.Anyone who reads the column without prior knowledge of the facts will come to the conclusion that Barghouti is a freedom fighter imprisoned for his views. Nothing is further from the truth. The missing part of the column is that Marwan Barghouti is a murderer. He was convicted in a civilian (not military) court on five separate counts of murder of innocent civilians. He was involved in dozens of attempted terror attacks. He caused people to lose their families and led to people being maimed. He destroyed lives….The reality is that a convicted terrorist is inventing stories about those who imprison him, as prisoners do all over the world, including in the United States.Instead of saying to him – as a responsible newspaper should – that if he doesn’t have a shred of evidence to support his stories then they can’t be published, the New York Times published them in its opinion pages and didn’t even bother to explain to its readers that the author is a convicted murderer of the worst kind.
What’s next for the Times? A platform for the Taliban to announce their next offensive against U.S. and coalition forces in Afghanistan? Boko Haram announcing how they are the victims of mean little girls?
A Palestinian terrorist recently stabbed to death British student Hannah Bladon. When does he get his NY Times Op-Ed?
*UPDATE 6:48PM*
MC – The New York Times added an editor’s note on its article to inform people that Barghouti is a convicted murderer:
CLICK HERE FOR FULL VERSION OF THIS STORY