57 Facts About Marwan Barghouti

Marwan Barghouti is a Palestinian political leader.

Marwan Barghouti declined to recognise the legitimacy of the court or enter a plea, but stated that he had no connection to the incidents for which he was convicted.

An Inter-Parliamentary Union report, considered the most detailed independent review of the trial, found that Marwan Barghouti was not given a fair trial and questioned the quality of the evidence.

Marwan Barghouti was an instigator and lead author of the 2006 Palestinian Prisoners' Document, which proposed a political path to a two-state solution, and secured support from Hamas.

Marwan Barghouti has organised education for fellow inmates, and in 2017 led a hunger strike that led to increased visitation rights.

Marwan Barghouti was born in the village of Kobar near Ramallah in the West Bank.

In 1967, when Marwan Barghouti was seven-years-old, Israel occupied the West Bank in the Six-Day War.

Marwan Barghouti joined Fatah at age 15, and he was a co-founder of the Fatah Youth Movement on the West Bank.

Marwan Barghouti later wrote that during the subsequent interrogation, he was forced to strip naked, spread his legs, and was struck on the genitals so hard that he lost consciousness.

Marwan Barghouti completed his secondary education and received a high school diploma while serving a four-year term in jail, where he became fluent in Hebrew.

Marwan Barghouti enrolled at Birzeit University in 1983, though arrest and exile meant that he did not receive his Bachelor's degree until 1994.

Marwan Barghouti earned a Master's degree in International Relations, from Birzeit, in 1998.

From exile, during the First Intifada, Marwan Barghouti continued to maintain contacts among activists in the West Bank.

Marwan Barghouti simultaneously built relationships with the older generation of Fatah activists, who had waged their struggle from exile for more than three decades.

Marwan Barghouti was elected to Fatah's Revolutionary Council, the movement's internal parliament, in 1989.

When he was allowed to return to Palestine in April 1994 as a result of the Oslo Accords, Marwan Barghouti found that he was able to bridge the divide between the two groups.

Marwan Barghouti campaigned against corruption in Arafat's administration and human rights violations by its security services.

Marwan Barghouti participated in diplomacy and built relationships with a number of Israeli politicians, and with leaders of Israel's peace movement.

Marwan Barghouti's assistant has claimed that Barghouti never refused to meet any Israeli.

The formal position occupied by Marwan Barghouti was Secretary-General of Fatah in the West Bank.

Marwan Barghouti became increasingly popular as a leader of demonstrations, as a spokesperson for Palestinian interests, and as leader of the Tanzim, a grouping of younger activists within Fatah who had taken up arms.

Israel has accused Marwan Barghouti of having co-founded and lead the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades during this period, which he has denied.

Marwan Barghouti was captured on 15 April 2002 by Israeli soldiers, who had disguised their journey to his location by hiding in a civilian ambulance.

Marwan Barghouti was then denied the right to see his lawyer for the next month, except for an occasion on which they were not allowed to discuss the investigation.

The next time he was able to talk freely with his lawyer, Marwan Barghouti described having been subject to severe sleep deprivation and insufficient food.

Marwan Barghouti described the torture, in the form of the shabeh method, in a later book, 1000 Days In Solitary Jail.

Marwan Barghouti said that he was forced to sit on a chair with nails protuding into his back for hours at a time.

Marwan Barghouti has written that during his pre-trial detention, in addition to Moscovia, he was held for periods at Camp 1391 and the Petah Tikva prison.

Marwan Barghouti was charged with 26 charges of murder and attempted murder stemming from attacks carried out by the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades on Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Marwan Barghouti refused to present a defense to the charges brought against him, maintaining throughout that the trial was illegal and illegitimate.

Marwan Barghouti stressed that he supported armed resistance to the Israeli occupation, but condemned attacks on civilians inside Israel.

Marwan Barghouti was acquitted of 21 counts of murder in 33 other attacks as no proof was brought to link Barghouti directly with the specific decisions of the local leadership of the Tanzim to carry out these particular attacks.

Marwan Barghouti has often drawn comparisons to Mandela from commentators inclined toward a resumption of the peace process.

Some prominent Israelis have called for Marwan Barghouti's release, citing his unique ability to unite Palestinians These include Ami Ayalon, Efraim Halevy, Meir Shitreet, and both Yossi Beilin and Haim Oron, two former ministers on the left of Israeli politics.

Every Israeli administration since Marwan Barghouti's imprisonment has declined to release him.

Still others, operating from a realpolitik perspective, have pointed out that allowing Marwan Barghouti to re-enter Palestinian politics could serve to bolster Fatah against gains in Hamas' popularity.

In January 2007, Israeli Deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres declared that he would pardon Marwan Barghouti if elected president.

Marwan Barghouti reportedly continued to oppose Barghouti's release in 2007.

Marwan Barghouti announced from his isolation cell that he would contest the election, challenging interim-President Mahmoud Abbas, a long-time Fadwa administrator of Arafat's generation.

Marwan Barghouti's candidacy was criticised by Fatah leaders as a threat to the movement's unity.

On 14 December 2005, Marwan Barghouti announced that he had formed a new political party, al-Mustaqbal, mainly composed of members of Fatah's "Young Guard", who repeatedly expressed frustration with the entrenched corruption in the party.

Marwan Barghouti had actually topped the list, but this had not become apparent until after the new party had been registered.

Marwan Barghouti's supporters argued that al-Mustaqbal would split the votes of both parties, both from disenchanted Fatah members as well as moderate Hamas voters who do not agree with Hamas' political goals, but rather its social work and hard position on corruption.

Marwan Barghouti eventually was convinced that the idea of leading a new party, especially one that was created by splitting from Fatah, would be unrealistic while he was still in prison.

Marwan Barghouti declined to testify before an Israeli court in January 2012, but used the opportunity of his appearance to say that "an Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines and the establishment of a Palestinian state will bring an end to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," according to Haaretz's Avi Issacharoff.

In November 2014, months after more than 2,000 Palestinians were killed by Israel in the 2014 Gaza War, Marwan Barghouti urged the Palestinian Authority to end security cooperation with Israel and called for a Third Intifada against Israel.

In 2016, a plan for confronting the occupation, purportedly authored by Marwan Barghouti and smuggled from prison, was presented by an ally.

Marwan Barghouti expected that Israel would kill some of the demonstrators.

Marwan Barghouti's attorney refused to respond to the videos, while his wife claimed that they had been "fabricated" to discredit him.

Marwan Barghouti has organised a programme to provide education to his fellow prisoners.

Marwan Barghouti intended to contest the Palestinian Presidential elections slated for 2021, but they were cancelled by President Abbas, citing Israel's refusal to permit voting in East Jerusalem.

Immediately prior to the cancelation, a poll suggested that Marwan Barghouti would go on to win the Presidency, with more than double Abbas's support, and significantly more than that of Ismail Haniyeh.

In each of the five polls conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research between September 2023 and September 2024, Marwan Barghouti came out ahead of a Hamas candidate when Palestinians were asked who they would vote for as President in a two-way race.

Marwan Barghouti was held in solitary confinement for three years following his 2002 detention and has frequently been returned to solitary confinement since.

Since 7 October 2023, Marwan Barghouti has been interred in solitary confinement.

Shortly after that date, the governor of Ofer Prison ordered Marwan Barghouti to kneel before the governor, according to his son, Arab Marwan Barghouti.

In May 2024, The Guardian reported that Marwan Barghouti "spends his days huddled in a cramped, dark, solitary cell, with no way to tend to his wounds, and a shoulder injury from being dragged with his hands cuffed behind his back,".