Wikipedia Deep Dive

Marwan Barghouti

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In the summer of 2000, a Palestinian politician who had spent years building relationships with Israeli lawmakers—attending peace conferences, sitting at the bedsides of sick Israeli colleagues, meeting with the central committees of nearly every Israeli political party—stood before crowds and warned that everything was about to fall apart. Within two years, he would be the most wanted man in the West Bank. Within four, he would be sentenced to five consecutive life terms in an Israeli prison. And within twenty-five, he would consistently top every poll asking Palestinians who should lead them.

This is the story of Marwan Barghouti, a man some call "the Palestinian Mandela."

A Childhood Under Occupation

Barghouti was born in 1959 in Kobar, a small village near Ramallah in the West Bank. His younger brother remembered him as "a naughty and rebellious boy." That rebellious streak would define his life.

When Barghouti was seven years old, everything changed. In June 1967, Israel fought the Six-Day War against Egypt, Jordan, and Syria. In less than a week, Israel captured the West Bank from Jordan, along with Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula, and the Golan Heights. Suddenly, Barghouti and his family were living under military occupation.

The occupation wasn't abstract. Neighbors were beaten or arrested for flying Palestinian flags. Military bases appeared. Jewish settlements—communities of Israeli civilians established in the newly occupied territory—sprouted around their village. Israeli soldiers shot the family dog for barking.

By fifteen, Barghouti had joined Fatah, the largest faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. That same year, he was imprisoned by Israel for the first time. He would be imprisoned again at eighteen. During that second detention, he later wrote, interrogators forced him to strip naked, spread his legs, and struck him on the genitals so hard he lost consciousness.

But prison became a kind of university. Barghouti earned his high school diploma while serving a four-year sentence, and he became fluent in Hebrew—the language of his captors, and of the people he would one day negotiate with.

The Student Activist

In 1983, Barghouti enrolled at Birzeit University, the premier Palestinian institution of higher education in the West Bank. But his studies were constantly interrupted. Arrests and periods of exile meant he wouldn't receive his bachelor's degree in history and political science until 1994—eleven years after enrolling.

During his undergraduate years, he threw himself into student politics, heading the Birzeit Student Council and organizing on behalf of Fatah. He also fell in love. In 1984, he married a fellow student named Fadwa Ibrahim. She would become a lawyer and a prominent advocate for Palestinian prisoners in her own right.

Before their first child was born, Barghouti was jailed for a third time. He missed his eldest son's birth. Then, in May 1987, Israel expelled him entirely from the West Bank.

Barghouti and Fadwa moved first to Tunis, Tunisia, where the PLO had its headquarters in exile, and then to Amman, Jordan. They would spend the next seven years abroad.

Exile and Return

Living in exile during the First Intifada—the Palestinian uprising that erupted in December 1987 and lasted until 1993—Barghouti found himself in an unusual position. He maintained close contact with young activists on the ground in the West Bank, the generation actually throwing stones and organizing strikes. But he also built relationships with the older generation of Fatah leaders, men who had been waging their struggle from exile for three decades.

In 1989, Barghouti was elected to Fatah's Revolutionary Council, essentially the movement's internal parliament. He was becoming a bridge figure—someone who could connect the old guard abroad with the young fighters at home.

Then came Oslo.

The Oslo Accords, signed in 1993 between Israel and the PLO, were supposed to be a breakthrough. The Palestinians would recognize Israel's right to exist. Israel would recognize the PLO as the representative of the Palestinian people. A Palestinian Authority would be established to govern parts of the West Bank and Gaza. And within five years, negotiations would resolve the thorniest issues: borders, refugees, Jerusalem, and the fate of Israeli settlements.

As a result of Oslo, Barghouti was allowed to return to Palestine in April 1994. He found that his years of relationship-building had paid off. He could speak to both the exiles who had just returned with Yasser Arafat and the local activists who had never left. He became a unifying figure.

The Parliamentarian

Barghouti believed in the peace process. But he doubted Israel was truly committed to it.

In 1996, he was elected to the Palestinian Legislative Council, representing the district of Ramallah. In the Palestinian parliament, he carved out a distinctive role. He supported negotiations with Israel, but he also campaigned loudly against corruption in Arafat's administration and human rights violations by Palestinian security services. He was a reformer pushing his own side to be better.

He also became a diplomat of sorts. He built relationships with Israeli politicians across the political spectrum and with leaders of Israel's peace movement. At peace conferences that followed Oslo, he engaged in what participants described as "heated discussions." When an Israeli politician named Meir Shitreet fell ill during a conference in Italy, Barghouti sat at his bedside through the night.

At a 1998 meeting with members of the Israeli Knesset—Israel's parliament—Barghouti referred to those present as friends and called to "strengthen this peace process." Haim Oron, a former Israeli cabinet minister, later recalled that Barghouti "spoke about the right of the Palestinians, and when I spoke about the right of Jews, he understood." His assistant has claimed that Barghouti never refused to meet any Israeli who wanted to meet him.

But underneath the diplomacy, frustration was building.

The Breaking Point

By the late 1990s, Palestinians were losing hope. The five-year deadline set by Oslo had come and gone. There was still no independent Palestinian state. Israeli settlements in the West Bank continued to expand. Life under occupation remained difficult—there were checkpoints, restrictions on movement, economic hardships. The promised peace seemed to be receding rather than approaching.

Demonstrations became frequent. Diana Buttu, a Palestinian-Canadian lawyer and analyst, recalled that "Marwan was somebody who was present at each and every protest for weeks and weeks and weeks on end. It became very clear that we were just never going to see freedom."

Barghouti tried to warn the Israelis. According to journalist Gideon Levy, he met with the central committees of almost every Israeli party to tell them that with the peace process stalled, the situation was tending toward violence. By the summer of 2000, particularly after peace talks at Camp David collapsed in July, Barghouti was disillusioned. He began speaking publicly about popular protests and "new forms of military struggle" that would characterize the "next Intifada."

He didn't have to wait long.

The Second Intifada

In September 2000, the Second Intifada erupted. The trigger was a visit by Ariel Sharon, then Israel's opposition leader, to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem—a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims. Palestinians saw the visit as a deliberate provocation. Protests broke out. Israeli forces responded with force. Within days, dozens of Palestinians had been killed. The violence spiraled.

The Second Intifada was far bloodier than the first. It featured not just stone-throwing protests but also suicide bombings inside Israel that killed hundreds of civilians. Israel responded with military operations, targeted assassinations, and eventually the construction of a massive separation barrier that carved through the West Bank.

Barghouti became a prominent figure in the uprising. He led marches to Israeli checkpoints. He gave speeches at funerals and demonstrations. He became the leader of the Tanzim, a grouping of younger Fatah activists who had taken up arms. But he described himself as "a politician, not a military man."

His position was complicated. He advocated using force to expel Israel from the West Bank and Gaza Strip—the territories occupied in 1967. But he distinguished between attacking Israeli soldiers and settlers in the occupied territories and attacking civilians inside Israel proper.

I, and the Fatah movement to which I belong, strongly oppose attacks and the targeting of civilians inside Israel, our future neighbor. I reserve the right to protect myself, to resist the Israeli occupation of my country and to fight for my freedom.

He maintained that he still sought "peaceful coexistence between the equal and independent countries of Israel and Palestine based on full withdrawal from Palestinian territories occupied in 1967."

Israel wasn't interested in these distinctions. Israeli officials accused Barghouti of co-founding and leading the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, a militant group that carried out attacks on both soldiers and civilians. Barghouti denied this.

In 2001, Israel tried to kill him. Israeli forces fired two missiles from a West Bank settlement at a convoy of cars in Ramallah, injuring Barghouti's bodyguard. Israeli sources claimed at the time they had been targeting a different Fatah operative. But the former head of Shin Bet—Israel's internal security service—later claimed to have made two attempts on Barghouti's life.

Barghouti went into hiding.

The Capture

On April 15, 2002, Israeli soldiers captured Barghouti. They had disguised their approach by hiding in an ambulance—a tactic that violated international humanitarian law, which protects medical vehicles from military use.

Barghouti was taken to the Moscovia Detention Centre. He refused to cooperate with interrogators. For the first three days, he was allowed to communicate with his lawyer. Then that right was revoked for a month, except for one meeting where they were forbidden from discussing the investigation.

When Barghouti was finally able to speak freely with his lawyer, he described severe sleep deprivation and insufficient food. In a later book titled 1000 Days In Solitary Jail, he described being subjected to a torture method called shabeh—being forced to sit on a chair with nails protruding into his back for hours at a time. He said interrogators threatened to kill him and his eldest son.

During his pre-trial detention, Barghouti was held at several facilities, including the notorious Camp 1391—a secret Israeli detention facility whose existence Israel long denied, and where detainees were reportedly subjected to severe abuse.

The Trial

Israel filed charges against Barghouti on August 14, 2002. His trial began on September 5. He faced 26 charges of murder and attempted murder related to attacks by the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades on Israeli civilians and soldiers.

Barghouti refused to present a defense. He maintained that the trial was illegal and illegitimate—that Israel, as an occupying power, had no right to try him in its courts. He stressed that while he supported armed resistance to occupation, he condemned attacks on civilians inside Israel.

On May 20, 2004, he was convicted on five counts of murder. The victims included a Greek Orthodox monk-priest named Father Germanos, a civilian killed in a shooting near the settlement of Giv'at Ze'ev, and three civilians killed in an attack on a seafood restaurant in Tel Aviv. He was also convicted of attempted murder for a car bomb near a Jerusalem shopping mall that exploded prematurely, killing only the two bombers, and of membership in a terrorist organization.

He was acquitted of 21 other murder charges because prosecutors couldn't prove he was directly connected to the specific decisions to carry out those attacks.

When the verdict was read, Barghouti shouted in Hebrew: "This is a court of occupation that I do not recognize. A day will come when you will be ashamed of these accusations. I have no more connection to these charges than you, the judges, do."

On June 6, 2004—his 45th birthday—he was sentenced to five consecutive life terms plus 40 additional years.

Questions About Justice

Was the trial fair?

The Inter-Parliamentary Union—an international organization of national parliaments—commissioned an independent report on the proceedings. The findings were damning.

Simon Foreman, the lawyer who authored the report, concluded that "numerous breaches of international law" made it "impossible to conclude that Mr. Barghouti was given a fair trial." The problems he identified included:

The court failed to investigate allegations of torture
The court authorized holding Barghouti incommunicado—without access to his lawyer—during interrogation
The presiding judge made prejudicial statements
Transporting Barghouti to Israel for trial violated the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits occupying powers from transferring people from occupied territory
The evidence of guilt was thin

On that last point, Foreman was particularly pointed. According to the prosecution, only 21 witnesses could testify directly about Barghouti's role in the attacks. "But none of these 21 individuals in fact accused him. About 12 of them explicitly told the court that he was not involved."

As for documentary evidence, Barghouti's lawyer told Foreman that "no document originated by Mr. Barghouti had implicated him in the acts of which he was being accused."

Foreman also noted that the evidence used against Barghouti consisted largely of statements made by other detainees—the same kind of statements that courts routinely dismissed when those detainees tried to use them to claim they had been tortured. The statements were credited when they incriminated Barghouti, but rejected when they incriminated Israeli interrogators.

The Prisoner as Politician

Most political careers end with a prison sentence. Barghouti's has continued through it.

In 2006, two years into his sentence, Barghouti was the lead author of what became known as the Palestinian Prisoners' Document. Written from inside an Israeli prison, the document proposed a political framework for a two-state solution. Remarkably, it secured support from Hamas—the Islamist movement that had long rejected recognizing Israel's existence. Getting Hamas to sign on to a document implicitly accepting a Palestinian state alongside Israel, rather than in place of it, was a significant achievement.

Barghouti organized education programs for fellow prisoners. In 2017, he led a mass hunger strike by Palestinian inmates that lasted 40 days and resulted in increased visitation rights.

Throughout it all, he has topped every poll asking Palestinians who should lead them. In survey after survey, more Palestinians say they would vote for Barghouti than for the aging Mahmoud Abbas, who has led the Palestinian Authority since 2005, or for any leader of Hamas. He polls well in both the West Bank and Gaza, among supporters of Fatah and supporters of Hamas, among secularists and Islamists.

This is remarkable. The Palestinian political landscape is deeply fractured. Fatah and Hamas fought a brief civil war in 2007, after which Hamas took control of Gaza while Fatah retained power in parts of the West Bank. The two factions have spent nearly two decades unable to reconcile. There have been no Palestinian elections since 2006. And yet a man who has been locked away for over two decades remains the most popular political figure among Palestinians.

The Palestinian Mandela?

The comparison to Nelson Mandela has followed Barghouti for years. Like Mandela, he was a resistance leader imprisoned by a government that many in the world considered illegitimate or oppressive. Like Mandela, he has maintained his political influence from behind bars. Like Mandela, his supporters argue that he represents the best hope for a negotiated peace.

In 2013, Barghouti's wife Fadwa launched the International Campaign to Free Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian Prisoners from Nelson Mandela's former cell on Robben Island. Standing beside her was Ahmed Kathrada, who had been imprisoned alongside Mandela.

Several prominent Israelis have called for Barghouti's release. They include Ami Ayalon, a former head of Shin Bet; Efraim Halevy, a former head of Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service; Meir Shitreet, the politician who Barghouti once stayed with through a night of illness; and several former government ministers. Some Israeli military officers involved in Barghouti's 2002 capture have come to support his release.

Their argument is pragmatic: Barghouti is the one Palestinian leader who might be able to unify his people and negotiate a genuine peace agreement with Israel. A 2008 poll found that 45 percent of Israelis supported releasing him, while 51 percent were opposed.

But there is an obvious difference between Barghouti and Mandela. Mandela was eventually vindicated by history—apartheid ended, South Africa became a democracy, and he became its first Black president. He went from prisoner to statesman, from terrorist (as his captors called him) to global icon of reconciliation.

Barghouti's story has no such ending. He remains in prison. The occupation continues. There is no peace agreement. Whether history will vindicate him or condemn him depends on events that haven't happened yet.

Recent Years

Barghouti's conditions have worsened dramatically since October 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing approximately 1,200 people and taking some 250 hostages. Israel's military response in Gaza has killed tens of thousands of Palestinians.

Since October 2023, Barghouti has been denied visits from his family. According to his lawyer, he has been severely beaten several times, causing persistent damage to his health. Israeli authorities have rejected his complaints about these incidents.

There have been several attempts to secure his release through negotiations—including in potential deals to free Israeli hostages held in Gaza—but all have failed.

In August 2023, just before the current crisis began, Fadwa met with senior officials and diplomats around the world, including Jordan's foreign minister, to advocate for her husband's release and position him as a potential successor to the 89-year-old Abbas. Near the end of 2025, some 200 prominent cultural figures—writers, musicians, and others—signed an open letter calling for his release.

Barghouti is now 66 years old. He has spent more than half his adult life in Israeli prisons. His hair has gone gray. His health has deteriorated. But he remains, by every available measure, the most popular leader among the Palestinian people.

What He Represents

Why does Barghouti matter?

He represents a path not taken. He was a man who built relationships with Israelis, who believed in negotiation, who warned that the failure of diplomacy would lead to violence—and who then became part of that violence. He is simultaneously a symbol of what the peace process could have achieved and of why it failed.

He represents the question of resistance and terrorism, and where the line between them lies. He advocated armed attacks on soldiers and settlers in occupied territory while condemning attacks on civilians inside Israel. His Israeli captors made no such distinction. Who is right depends on which framework you apply—the laws of occupation, the laws of war, or simple moral intuition about when violence is justified.

He represents the question of justice under occupation. Can an occupying power fairly try people who resist that occupation? The Inter-Parliamentary Union said no. Israeli courts said yes. The disagreement reflects deeper disagreements about the legitimacy of the occupation itself.

And he represents hope—or perhaps delusion—about what might still be possible. His supporters believe that if he were freed, he could unite the Palestinian factions, negotiate with Israel, and achieve the two-state solution that has eluded everyone for decades. His critics believe this is fantasy, that the moment for such a solution has passed, that too much blood has been spilled.

From his cell, Marwan Barghouti cannot answer these questions. He can only wait, as he has waited for more than twenty years, for the chance to try.