30 Facts About Mustafa Barghouti

Mustafa Barghouti has been a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council since 2006 and is a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization Central Council.

In 2007 Barghouti was Minister of Information in the Palestinian unity government.

Mustafa Barghouti is an advocate of the use of non-violence and civil disobedience to confront Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, and East Jerusalem.

Mustafa Barghouti was born on January 1,1954 in Jerusalem.

Mustafa Barghouti's family is from Bani Zeid, a village about 15 miles northwest of Ramallah, Birzeit.

Mustafa Barghouti grew up in Ramallah and his father was the municipal engineer for the nearby village of Al-Bireh.

Mustafa Barghouti has said that he was "reshaped" by the Six-Day War.

Mustafa Barghouti has said that he was "very active" as a student activist in the West Bank.

Mustafa Barghouti stood for election in the 1996 PLC elections, running as a candidate in the Ramallah district, but lost out narrowly after a recount.

Mustafa Barghouti is the President of the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, an NGO that provides health and community services to people in the Occupied Territories.

Mustafa Barghouti is the Director of the Health Development Information and Policy Institute, an independent Ramallah-based think-tank that engages in policy research and planning for the Palestinian health-care system in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Mustafa Barghouti was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize in 2010 by Mairead Maguire, who had won the prize in 1976.

Mustafa Barghouti said that after 1993, he and his colleagues "were conducting a struggle on two fronts," against the Israeli Occupation and against the Palestinian Authority.

In 1996, Mustafa Barghouti, was shot by an Israeli sniper while providing medical assistance to injured civilians in the West Bank as part of his role in the Palestinian Medical Relief Society.

On 3 January 2003, Mustafa Barghouti was arrested following an international press conference in East Jerusalem, on charges of disturbing the peace and entering the city illegally.

Mustafa Barghouti was detained on 3 January 2006 while campaigning in the Arab quarter of East Jerusalem and was taken for questioning to a local police station.

Mustafa Barghouti announced on 29 November 2004 that he would be a candidate in the 9 January 2005 election to choose a successor to the just-deceased Yasser Arafat as President of the Palestinian National Authority.

Mustafa Barghouti was endorsed by his fellow PNI co-founder Dr Haidar Abdel-Shafi.

Mustafa Barghouti became Mahmoud Abbas's main challenger after his cousin Marwan Barghouti, who was in jail for leading an uprising, withdrew from the race.

Mustafa Barghouti, who was "widely seen as an outsider", campaigned on a platform of change and major PA reforms.

Mustafa Barghouti called for Israel's withdrawal from the Gaza Strip, West Bank, and East Jerusalem, the release of Palestinian prisoners, and the establishment of a sovereign Palestinian state.

Mustafa Barghouti claimed that at the annual Land Day protest in Bethlehem in 2012, he was struck in the head by a canister of tear gas shot by Israeli forces.

The war in Gaza resulted in a humanitarian catastrophe, and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society, which Mustafa Barghouti runs, has been active in the Gaza Strip, providing critical medical care.

Mustafa Barghouti has argued that Israel has been committing genocide in the Gaza Strip, stating that "The ultimate goal of Israel is ethnic cleansing," like the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in during the 1948 Nakba.

In 2024, Mustafa Barghouti said that he continues to believe in a peaceful political resolution to the conflict, where Palestinians are guaranteed national rights and Israel ends what Mustafa Barghouti describes as its system of apartheid, occupation, and oppression.

Mustafa Barghouti has criticized the PLO and Palestinian Authority for corruption.

Mustafa Barghouti is married to Rita Giacaman, professor of public health at the Institute of Community and Public Health at Birzeit University.

Mustafa Barghouti's daughter, Dia Barghouti, is a doctoral candidate at the University of London.

In January 2024, during an interview, TalkTV broadcaster Julia Hartley-Brewer yelled at Mustafa Barghouti and suggested that he was uncomfortable listening to women speak, leading to over 17,000 complaints to British Office of Communications.

Mustafa Barghouti is a distant cousin of Marwan Mustafa Barghouti, the former Secretary General of Fatah in the West Bank and proponent of the peace process who, in 2002, was imprisoned by Israel for his alleged role in deadly attacks.