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History As It Happens December 19, 2025 Marwan Barghouti in the crisis of Palestinian nationalism, security will be achieved by one way, by one way, by peace. And peace will be achieved by the end of the occupation. From the very beginning, we have said that this is a political. This is a political trial.
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It's incomprehensible that anyone should try to.
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Argue that the court doesn't have jurisdiction in this case.
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We' talking about terrorist attacks against Israelis committed in Israel, some of them just.
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Half a mile from here, where the.
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Idea was to try and terrorize the Israeli population. Marwan Barghouti has long been seen by Palestinians and Western leaders alike as the one man who could unite and lead Palestinians to statehood.
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He's been called the Palestinians, Nelson Mandela, the world's most important prisoner. Marwan Barghouti is serving life in Israeli prison. Yet he's seen as a potential unifier, respected by figures on both sides. Despite his conviction for terrorism, could he revive the two state solution? His life and times, the history he made and witnessed Next, as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.
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I suppose in the strict sense, we don't know exactly how his views have evolved or may have evolved, but we know traditionally he has been a supporter of a two state solution. He's been a supporter of diplomatic process with Israel. He has many admirers, not just certainly among Palestinians, but even among Israeli elites. He is seen as someone that they can do business with. And so unless he's had a complete change of heart, we don't know his mental condition either, just given the extremely harsh conditions that he's been placed under, particularly in the past two years. But we know certain basics, and that is he supports a two state solution. He is not a pacifist, but he believes in diplomacy.
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It is November 2002, during the middle of the second Palestinian uprising. A prisoner appears in court. He raises his handcuffed arms and shouts toward reporters while guards try to restrain him. Marwan Barghouti is accused of organizing attacks that kill 26 people.
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You know, everybody in this world know.
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That Marwan Barghouti is fighting for peace.
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I am a peace man. I was trying to do everything for the peace between the two peoples.
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Policy of incubation will not lead for the security. Security will be a ch. By one way, by one way, by peace. And peace will be achieved by the end of the incubation. No peace, no security with occupation. Barghouti was ultimately convicted in 2004 for the murder of four Israelis and a Greek Orthodox monk during the second intifada, which broke out in 2000 as the Oslo peace process disintegrated. After 14 days of intensive negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. I have concluded with regret that they will not be able to reach an agreement at this time.
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It's a normal thing to visit the Temple Mount, and every Jew can visit Temple Mount.
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A recent profile in the Economist headlined marwan Barghouti, the world's most important prisoner, says when the uprising started, he would rally protesters and lead them to the checkpoint at the foot of Bayet El, a settlement and military base on the outskirts of the town. Many protesters threw stones. Israeli soldiers responded with rubber bullets and sometimes live rounds. Occasionally, Apache helicopters joined in. The protesters kept coming. After several weeks of mounting casualties, Palestinians started shooting back from the rooftops. Unlike the previous intifada, the second quickly spiraled into armed conflict. And when it ended five years later, around a thousand Israelis had been killed, while Palestinians were left with more than 3,000 dead. Marwan Barghouti has always denied he organized or ordered attacks on civilians. But at his trial, he refused to recognize the authority of the Israeli court and offered no defense.
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Barghouti is responsible for the murder of.
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Hundreds of Israeli citizens and soldier of Israel.
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So it's quite obvious that the court in Israel has the authority to get indictment against him.
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He tried to sustain political activity from prison, leading a hunger strike in 2017. But as the Washington Post reports, he has been seen in just a handful of photographs and videos over the past decade. His last major interview was 12 years ago. But then in August, Israel's right wing National Security Minister, Itamar Ben gvir visited a graying Barghouti in prison and posted the video on social media. You will not defeat us, said Ben gvir. Whoever harms the people of Israel, whoever kills children, whoever kills women, we will erase them. In an interview with Time magazine a few weeks ago, President Donald Trump was asked, who do you think currently leads the Palestinians? He responded, they don't have a leader right now. The reporter then asked him, well, what about Marwan Barghouti? Do you think Israel should release him from prison? Trump responded, I am 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. Well, today, Marwan Barghouti is in the same place he's been since the second Intifada soaked the land in blood. He's in prison. His life traces the story of the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Born in 1959 in the west bank, then ruled by Jordan, his life and the lives of all Palestinians dramatically changed with Israel's sweeping victories in the Six Day War War in the Middle East, Israeli forces drive spearheads across the Sinai.
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Peninsula, west to the Suez Canal, south to the entrance of the Gulf of Aqaba, breaking the blockade, capturing the west bank of the Jordan river, and occupying the Old City of Jerusalem.
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He became a leading figure in the Fatah movement's Young Guard in the 1980s. But in 1987, the year the first intifada broke out, Israel deported him to Jordan, denying the uprising his important leadership.
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The protests evolved from boys throwing rocks and people marching to fighters attacking Israeli soldiers and military targets. The Palestinians went on strike and boycotted Israeli products.
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He returned to the west bank after the Oslo Accords were signed and built trusting relationships with Israelis. And that history continues to foster hope that Marwan Barghouti, even after all these years hidden away in prison, can galvanize the peace process and help end the horrendous suffering of his people. He is by far the most popular Palestinian figure today. Khaled El Gindi is a scholar and a senior fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. He was once an advisor to Palestinian leadership during negotiations with Israel from 2004 to 2009. Our conversation next, but remember, you can become a subscriber and enjoy ad free listening Bonus content and 247 access to the entire catalog of 500 episodes dating back to early 2021. Just tap, subscribe now in the show notes or go to history as it happens.Supercast.com Everyone deserves to be connected. That's why T Mobile and US Cellular are joining forces. Switch to T Mobile and save up to 20% versus Verizon by getting built in benefits they leave out. Check the math@t mobile.com switch and now T mobile is in US cellular stores.
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A SOFI personal loan could repackage your bad debt into one low fixed rate monthly payment. It's even got super speed since you could get the funds that as soon as the same day you sign. Visit sofi.compower to learn more. That's S-O F I.com power loans originated by SoFi bank and a member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891 Khaled Elgindy welcome back.
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Yeah, thanks for having me back and.
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B
Congrats on your new position at the Quincy Institute. So we're going to discuss the life and times of Marwan Barghouti. You can trace the history of this conflict by following his life story. He has been in the news lately, at least his name has. He's been locked up for 20 some years. So does anyone know what he stands for now? What can we safely assume to be his ideas anymore?
- [11:32]
A
Yeah, I suppose in the strict sense, we don't know exactly how his views have evolved or may have evolved, but we know traditionally he has been a supporter of a two state solution and he's been a supporter of diplomatic process with Israel. He has many admirers, not just certainly among Palestinians, but even among Israeli elites. He is seen as someone that they can do business with. And so unless he's had a complete change of heart, we don't know his mental condition either, just given the extremely harsh conditions that he's been placed under, particularly in the past two years. But we know certain basics and that that is, he supports a two state solution. He is not a pacifist, but he believes in diplomacy. But he also believes that occasionally violent resistance is warranted, especially when the occupation itself is maintained through. Through violence.
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B
He is 66 years old. He was seen relatively recently in a video that was posted by the far right government minister in Israel, Itamar Ben gvir. Ben GVIR was berating him. What did you make of that whole thing?
- [12:48]
A
Yeah, I think it's part of Ben Gvir's MO which is to humiliate Palestinians, particularly since part of his role is to oversee the prisons. And he has made it a point that he has scaled back a lot of the services or benefits that prisoners might have enjoyed. Things like, you know, visitation rights, letters, that sort of thing. Ben GVIR has sort of reveled in ramping up the pressure on diminishing their food rations, on diminishing their ability to interact with other prisoners. The images that we saw of that interaction were really striking in that Marwan Barghouti looked, it was almost unrecognizable. I mean, he looked gaunt. He had clearly lost a considerable amount of weight. Weight. He had aged grayer. And he was, he was not healthy looking and he looked almost like a child being berated by his parents. He looked meek. And I think that was what Ben GVIR was trying to project. And that is, you know, we Israelis can break your spirit. And that is what we're doing to all those who idolize this man. Look at him now. I think that was the message.
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B
Public humiliation. So I was just reading an article from The Economist last July 2024 with the headline, the world's most important prisoner, Marwan Barghouti. The article stated that a prisoner swap might be in the works and it would include him. His name's come up again recently along those lines. Khaled, why, in your estimation, was he not released by the Netanyahu government?
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A
Yeah, his name is always kind of at the top of the list of any prisoner exchange, and that goes back many years. Hamas has negotiated a number of prison exchanges over the past 15 years or so. They consistently put his name at the top. I think he hasn't been released because of what he represents to Palestinians. First of all, he's hugely popular among Palestinians. He almost has a kind of mythical place in the minds of Palestinians that whether it's realistic or not, doesn't matter. I mean, he occupies this place as a kind of legendary. He's a living legend, been in the resistance. He has sacrificed a lot. He's facing a life sentence. But he's seen as someone who can unify Palestinians and as someone who can make a deal with Israelis. He's fluent in Hebrew. He spent an enormous amount of time in prison reading about Israeli society and politics, and he has many relationships with Israeli officials.
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B
This wasn't his first time in prison.
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Exactly. He did a stint after the first intifada in the late 80s, early 90s and was even exiled. And so he represents two things that this Netanyahu government, this very extreme government, does not want. They don't want to see a Palestinian leader emerge who can unify Palestinians, who is seen as someone who could negotiate a conflict ending deal with Israel. They want to maintain the narrative that there is no partner on the other side, that there are no credible Palestinian leaders. You know, they've released people with literal blood on their hands as part of these exchanges. Clearly, clearly. I think Marwan's continued detention is purely political at this stage.
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B
And there's also what happened with Yassinwar, the head of Hamas. He was once a prisoner and was released and then went on to plan the October 7th attacks. So maybe that's also a concern here on the Israelis part because Barghouti was convicted in a terrorist attack that killed civilians.
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A
Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is often the talking point that we hear from Israelis is, you know, we release this one other high profile prisoner and look, look what he did. I think Marwan is different. First of all, the evidence that he was directly involved in organizing attacks on Israeli civilians is pretty scant. His conviction relied on things like secret evidence and testimony of various informants who were recruited by Israeli intelligence and military folks, perhaps under coercion. I mean, we know that coercion and torture are part and parcel of how Israeli intelligence operates. I don't think a credible analyst would look at his conviction and say, well, yeah, he had full due process. So I don't think Marwan is comparable in the sense that he's a known quantity. We know he supports a two state solution, unlike Yahya Sinwar. We know he supports negotiations with Israel, unlike Yahya Sinwar, in terms of a final status deal. And he has relationships among high ranking, you know, former Israeli officials who, some of whom even vouch for him. So he's different in that sense. He's not someone who I think would go out and plot, you know, the mass killing of Israeli civilians.
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B
He was born in early June 1959, just about eight years exactly before the start of the Six Day War of 1967. An event that would change his life and the lives of millions of others. What was life like for Palestinians in the west bank under Jordanian control when Marwan Barghouti was a boy?
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A
Yeah, so during that period between 1948 and 1967, when the west bank was and East Jerusalem were under Jordanian control and Palestinians were fully integrated into Jordanian politics and society, although not necessarily as Palestinians, the Hashemite monarchy was very keen to avoid that label and not to promote Palestinian nationalism, but they were full citizens. The west bank was annexed by Jordan, although it was not really recognized internationally except by a handful of countries. But it was clear that Palestinian nationalism was a thing. Marwan was probably too young at age 8 by the time the west bank fell into under Israeli occupation for him to have like a real political consciousness. But that certainly evolved and, and I think it was pretty common for Palestinians. Palestinian national identity was very pervasive, even under Jordanian rule.
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B
Were the Jordanians heavy handed at all? I mean, what was the day to day life like?
- [19:21]
A
They were heavy handed in the sense of the PLO was formed, I believe in 1964. So just a few years before Israel captured the west bank, the PLO was founded, I believe, in Jerusalem when it was under Jordanian rule. The Jordanians didn't outlaw the plo, but they also did not promote it. They did not want a rival political leadership to emerge that would challenge the.
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B
Monarchy, which wound up happening. King Hussein, for a while there, it looked like he might be overthrown. Now we discussed Palestinians in Jordan once before, may have been the last time you were on. And in the interim I've had Kai Bert on to discuss his great book the Good Spy. Bob Ames was one American official among a minority when this was discussed. Most people were not on Ames side but he believed that the PLO should be helped to overthrow the Hashemite monarchy in the 1960s. This is before the events of Black September where the PLO ultimately be thrown out of Jordan in a terrible civil war. Short but very violent civil war. Some American officials believed that give the PLO a state to run and because more than half of Jordan's population was Palestinian anyway that would force the PLO to put down the rifle so to speak and take up the responsibilities of having to run a state. I know that Barghouti was a boy when all of this was happening but what are your thoughts on that historically? Looking back, was that a missed opportunity there it was the exploits of Yasser Arafat's Fatah that first caught the imagination of the Western press. Operating from Jordan they infiltrated the Israeli occupied West bank and Israel itself. The Fatah fighters swaggered through the streets of Amman. Became a kind of occupation occupying force inside King Hussein's capital.
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A
There were elements inside the plo, although not necessarily the PLO leadership of Yasser Arafat that were interested in overthrowing the monarchy. But for the most part the PLO leadership were interested in forcing King Hussein and the monarchy to accommodate the PLO and and to allow their freedom of action. Because the PLO wanted to carry out attacks from the east bank onto Israeli occupied West Bank. Jordan wanted to restrict that their ability to sort of be a state within a state. That's what the PLO had become. They were running their own governance and security in the Palestinian refugee camps. As you said, it was a very large segment of the overall population. This was really about for the Jordanians asserting Jordanian sovereignty and for the PLO trying to maintain their freedom of action. It wasn't necessarily. It wasn't at all really about creating a Palestinian state on the East Bank. That's not something that the PLO supported. But a handful of folks inside the PLO believe that if maintaining the PLO's freedom of action required overthrowing the Hashemites then so be it. But that wasn't the official position of the Asser Arafat. But it was a very sticky situation in that the PLO imposed itself in ways that really violated Jordanian sovereignty.
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B
King Hussein was worried enough to ask for American help. And as I mentioned speaking to Kai Bird about his book and this is one of the More interesting chapters. I actually did not know this, that there were people in the US government, Bob Ames, who thought that the US should support the PLO in such an endeavor. We know that did not happen. More people in the American government wanted to stick with the Hashemites. How did life for him and his family and for Palestinians generally change after 1967, the Six Day War? And how did that shape Barghouti's early activism?
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A
Yeah, I mean, it changed everything because now Palestinians went from being ruled by, I don't want to say friendly, but at least a tolerant, somewhat tolerant Arab regime to an Israeli occupation that was entirely hostile even to the notion of the existence of a Palestinian people. You may remember of my air, former Israeli Prime Minister famously said, there's no such thing as a Palestinian. And that was the prevailing view in Israel. It was also the prevailing view in American government circles. People like Bob Ames were the minority, arguing that Palestinians were a nation, they did have legitimate political aspirations for self determination and that those should be accommodated. That was the minority view even in Washington. In Israel, it was basically non existent. There was a total ban on any institution that had the word Palestinian in it. All Palestinian factions, whether they were left wing or Fatah or the communists or other, other groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, they were all banned as terrorist organizations, which was the blanket label applied to anything and everything Palestinian. It was in that environment that Marwan Barouti came of age where it was illegal to wave a Palestinian flag or to pledge your allegiance to the Palestine Liberation Organization.
- [24:43]
B
In the Economist piece I referenced before, it says here the Barghoutis now living under Israeli occupation. Their neighbors beaten up or arrested for flying Palestinian flags. Military bases in Jewish settlements sprang up around their village. Israeli soldier shot dead the family dog for barking. According to childhood friends, Barghouti became involved in, as you mentioned, there was a Communist Party there. He became involved in the Communist Party which was influential in the occupied territories at the time. So that seems to be his first taste of activism. You know, I did not know that the Communist Party was influential in the occupied territories in the late 60s. What can you tell us about that? How long did Barghouti stick with the Communists?
- [25:29]
A
Yeah, I think this was a part of a trend in the broader Arab world as well. The Communist Party or Communist parties were quite active and influential in a number of places from Iraq to Syria to Egypt. Was part of the political landscape in post colonial or, you know, post independence parts of the Arab world. It wasn't that surprising in the Palestinian context. What made the Communists in the Palestinian context distinct from other Palestinian political forces is that they were generally not opposed to Israel's existence. You know, whereas groups like Fatah and the PFLP and let's call them indigenous Palestinian political movements, since obviously Communists are transnational. You know, they didn't reject Israel as entirely. As a colonial outcrop that was illegitimate. I'm not saying that Marwan Barghouti didn't believe that maybe at some stage in his life. But what was different about the Communists is that they had, first of all, relationship with the Israeli Communist Party that was also represented in the Israeli Parliament in the Knesset. And they reflected the, you know, very often the views of the Soviet Union, which recognized an Israeli state. The Communists were somewhat different in that respect.
- [26:52]
B
And from what I gather here, the Communists were also nonviolent. Nonviolent resistance. Barghouti apparently got tired of just marching around and seeing that the marches were not changing anything.
- [27:04]
A
Yeah, I mean, Barghouti's, I think, real foray into direct action was during the first intifada, the Palestinian uprising that began in the late 1980s, in which he emerged as an organizer for Fatah, what was then the dominant Palestinian political faction.
- [27:21]
B
Yeah, he was a part of a new, younger Palestinian activist. Because these were the years. We're already jumping ahead a bit to the 1980s, ahead of the first intifada. But the PLO is in exile. The old guard is in exile, right?
- [27:34]
A
Yeah. The PLO is formally in exile. It is still officially banned by Israel. But everybody knows that the PLO exists and that the PLO is viewed almost universally by Palestinians as their sole legitimate political representative. During the uprising. During the first intifada, there was what was called the unified leadership of the uprising, made up of all the different factions, and they would coordinate their activities. And at a certain point, they began to coordinate with the PLO outside. The PLO at the time was based in Tunisia, in Tunis. The PLO would channel resources and other support, political support to the leaders of the uprising. But it was the leadership inside the country, country that was running that uprising. They didn't take orders from the plo, but they did coordinate with their political leadership.
- [28:30]
B
I want to return to an episode earlier in his life which will help explain why he became more radicalized, if you will, if that's the right term. I think this is understandable. He was 18 and was arrested in a nighttime raid on his home. Israeli prison guards put a bag over his head, stripped him naked, reading from the economist here and beat his genitals with a stick until he fainted. He later alleged when he came round, they taunted him that he'd be unable to have children. According to his brother, Barghouti was accused of being part of a terrorist organization and preparing Molotov cocktails. He spent four and a half years in prison. He was released in 1983, that is, four years before the first intifada. Are you familiar with this story? It would be an informative experience for just about anybody.
- [29:19]
A
Yes, for sure. He. It was absolutely formative for him. It's where he learned Hebrew. He was a voracious reader, from what I can gather, and he read quite a lot about Israeli politics and society. I don't know if I would use the word radicalized. It certainly contributed to his politicization and who he was and what he believed and sort of cemented what he believed in. But he was someone who was a patriot, he was a nationalist. He believed in the liberation of his people. He understood the power dynamics. He understood that there would have to be an accommodation with Israel, that Israel was not going to be dismantled, certainly not militarily, by Palestinians. And so he was a pragmatist. I think at the end of the day, he believed in talking to the Israelis about the terms of Palestinian liberation. But he was also not a pacifist in the. In the way that. That, let's say, Mahmoud Abbas has completely forsaken the idea of armed resistance.
- [30:23]
B
Rashid Khalidi, in his book the Hundred Years War on Palestine, says of the first intifada. It was an outstanding example of popular resistance against oppression can be considered as being the first unmitigated victory for the Palestinians in the long colonial war that began in 1917. Unlike the 1936 revolt, Khalidi says the first intifada was driven by a broad strategic vision and a unified leadership, and it did not exacerbate internal Palestinian divisions. Its unifying effect and largely successful avoidance of firearms and explosives, in contrast to the Palestinian resistance movement of the 60s and 70s, helped to make its appeal widely heard internationally, leading to a profound and lasting positive impact on both Israeli and. And world public opinion. But before Barghouti could really establish a rapport and a relationship with the peace negotiators during the Oslo era, Israel deported him to Jordan in 1987. Why?
- [31:26]
A
Because they saw him as an agitator. He was one of the leaders at the grassroots level. He could mobilize people against the Israeli occupation. And so he was a direct, direct threat.
- [31:38]
B
Who are you going to negotiate with. If you kick out all the leaders.
- [31:41]
A
Well, they. The Israeli occupation was not interested in negotiating, right? Yeah. They were not interested in accommodating Palestinian nationalism until, you know, well into the first intifada, when there was a realization, particularly on the Israeli political left, that, okay, yes, Palestinians are a thing and they have political aspirations and we need to. We need to figure out how to accommodate that, otherwise we're going to be fighting this resistance forever.
- [32:13]
B
So he comes back to the west bank as part of the Oslo process. He's allowed to return in the mid-1990s. And this was the high point, the early 90s, a high point of Israeli Palestinian relations. I know that's a low bar to cross. Did he get along with Arafat? Did he have problems with Arafat's leadership?
- [32:31]
A
My understanding is that he was sort of a protege of Yasser Arafat and that Arafat saw him as someone he could groom. You know, I don't know that he necessarily, necessarily saw him as a successor, but he saw him as someone who was loyal, charismatic, and therefore attractive as a. As a leader, someone that could mobilize people. Can I just say something quickly about the Intifada, because you mentioned the first intifada and that description by Rashid Khalidi, I think is really excellent because it sort of debunks this notion. You know, nowadays the word intifada has sort of been pathologized and distorted to mean something like terrorism, such that if activists talk about globalizing the intifada, it's automatically seen as something violent as opposed to what intifada actually means, which is, etymologically, it is an uprising. The first intifada was, as Rashid explains, was largely nonviolent and for that reason quite effective. But nowadays the word has gotten demonized and pathologized in ways that I think do a real disservice to the whole issue.
- [33:45]
B
I think we did a whole show about that. Maybe I'll include a link to that in the show notes for this episode. Yeah, I mean, the question is, and this is an integral question when we're discussing Marwan Barghouti's life. If you're under military occupation, what are the acceptable ways to resist? The first intifada had some violence. It got a little bit more violent as it went on, but the body count was totally one sided and it was crushed violently. And many more Palestinians died than Israelis. So that is my question to people. How do you expect those who are under the boot, what's the right way for them to resist Terrorism is against civilians. You can say that's not acceptable. The first Intifada wasn't like that. It wasn't known for suicide bombings.
- [34:30]
A
Right, exactly. There, there weren't really suicide bombings happening in the, in the first interval that it was general strikes, protests. It was shutting down stores, in some cases roads, that sort of thing. And it was running underground schools because Israel in retaliation had shut down the schools which they ran as the, the military was the government for Palestinians. And as punishment, they shut down the schools. And so one of the acts of resistance was to create these underground schools. All of that was subsumed under this thing called the Intifada. That had nothing to do with violence.
- [35:09]
B
So during the heyday of the Oslo process, such as it was, we'll call that before Rabin's assassination, what was Barghouti's role? How did he come to embrace the two state solution, or did he already embrace that prior to this?
- [35:23]
A
His role, I think, was as leader within Fatah. He was not an official office holder inside the Palestinian Authority, but he was one of the organizers and leaders of Fatah in the West Bank. Yeah, I'm not sure exactly when he embraced it. By the signing of Oslo. The PLO itself before that, in 1988, the PLO embraces the two state solution by recognizing Israel and declaring independence in the west bank and Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem. So it may have been at that point, but I'm not 100% positive. The bulk of his political life has been in support of a two state solution.
- [36:03]
B
And he became very close with Israeli officials.
- [36:07]
A
They had a sort of respect for him as someone who was influential, particularly military people. You know, military folks, they respect people who can produce results, they can influence outcomes. And I think they saw him as, as that sort of person.
- [36:23]
B
I think it's an important point to bring up because as we said at the top, man's been in prison for so long now. I mean, what kind of relationships would he even have anymore with the Israelis? It's hard to say.
- [36:36]
A
Oh, at this point, I don't know what his relationships are. I think there are some, like Ami Ayalon, who still advocate for his release. There are a handful of former Israeli officials who do that. But it is a minority view, as far as I can tell.
- [36:51]
B
Yeah, opinions have hardened for sure, recent events. And this is Also, we're talking 30 years ago, the Oslo process. So I had asked you before about his relationship to Arafat. I'm just consulting my notes again. I want to make sure I get this Right. So I have Ian Black's book here, Enemies and Neighbors, and he's talking to a major turning point in the Oslo process, and that is, of course, the election of Benjamin Netanyahu following the death of Yitzhak Rabin. Says Black, the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians declined from the modest level of understanding and partial reconciliation that had been achieved into an escalating and debilitating confrontation with the Netanyahu government over the building of settlements and other issues. Marwan Barghouti, the leader of Fatah's Young Guard, warned many Palestinians are now questioning Arafat's strategic choice of seeking peace with Israel. He said Netanyahu's policy is to strengthen Hamas and the opposition on the Palestinian street. Barghouti had been deported by the Israelis during the first Intifada and allowed back after Oslo. Well, nothing has changed there. I mean, Netanyahu's policy was to strengthen Hamas and to split Palestinian opinion.
- [38:08]
A
Yeah, it was a bit sort of a harbinger of what was going to come later on when Netanyahu actually approved suitcases full of cash coming from Qatar to Hamas in Gaza. And I think with the same purpose, which was to keep Palestinians divided. The PLO was the main threat, not a military threat, but a political threat, in that it was the voice of Palestinians. It was advocating for a Palestinian state in the west bank and Gaza, which would necessarily mean ending Israel's occupation, dismantling settlements, establishing a Palestinian capital in East Jerusalem, all of the things that the Greater Israel crowd that Netanyahu represents, along with people to the right of him, completely oppose. And while they did not love Hamas, which didn't even recognize Israel's existence and consistently called for Israel's dismantling, they saw it as something useful to promote them, as a counterweight to the nationalists of the plo, which, of course, that whole approach backfired spectacularly both during the Oslo process, when we saw wave after wave of Hamas suicide bombings, but also more recently, after October 7th.
- [39:25]
B
So, as we know, the Oslo process broke down and the second Intifada, as a result of the problems during the peace negotiations, settlements, violence, spoilers Second Intifada breaks out. I did not know until preparing for this conversation with you that Barghouti was there on the Temple Mount when Ariel Sharon, who was the leader of Likud at the time, showed up to deliberately provoke. And the Economist article says he was there waiting for him, waiting for Sharon. With a posse of young men. They furiously denounced Sharon, hurled chairs at his security detail. The second Intifada had begun. So what was his. Parguti, what was his role in the second intifada that quickly became militarized and a lot more violent than the first one because he gets arrested in 2002, just two years later for the case that we brought up earlier.
- [40:19]
A
Right. And he's wanted for a period before his arrest. So, yeah, he's seen as one of the organizers of actions against the occupation, what Israelis would call instigators or inciters. You know, Fatah is the largest at this point, the largest Palestinian political faction in the occupied territories. And so mobilizing them is a big deal and has an enormous impact. Impact. And so once he does that, as I said, he's not a pacifist. You know, he denies ever giving any orders to attack civilians, notwithstanding his conviction for exactly that. But, you know, he openly supported armed resistance against soldiers, against, you know, Israeli military installations. So he supported a lot of the armed actions of the second intifada, including when Palestinian police forces turned their guns on the Israeli army. That is the point at which things really began to spiral downward for the second intifada. And it became heavily militarized on the Palestinian side, and in response, of course, disproportionately more so on the Israeli side.
- [41:32]
B
You said that he's always denied giving orders to kill civilians. But I'll cite this article again because it is quite good. It says, toward the end of 2000, Barghouti helped Arafat set up a military wing of the Tanzim, which was one of his organizations. The military wing was the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. At first, it restricted itself to attacking settlements and soldiers in the occupied territories. That was enough to make Barghouti a target. A former Shin Bet commander, that's the Israeli intelligence, said plans were drawn up to assassinate him, but never carried out. His old Israeli friends tried to steer Barghouti away from militancy. I warned him. I called him. I said, stay away. Don't touch terror, according to one justice minister at the time, an Israeli justice minister. But Barghouti wanted to prove occupation had a cost. I'm not a terrorist, but neither am I a pacifist. And at one point, he also said, we can't lose the street to Hamas, Fatah, Arafat. We have to show that we're willing to do some pretty rough things here. Was this a mistake? I mean, in retrospect, he was arrested. Was this a mistake to go down this road for him?
- [42:40]
A
Him? I. I don't know if it was a mistake. I Mean, that's for him to decide whether. Yeah, I mean, look, things happen for a reason. There's cause and effect. Whether it was Marwan Baruti or someone just like him, things would have happened in a similar way. When the Israelis use live fire against Palestinian protesters, eventually someone is going to pick up a gun and shoot back. And that's precisely what happened. And not only shoot back, but begin to plot attacks not just on soldiers and settlers, but also Israeli civilians in Israel. As the Palestinian death count, body count rises. The second intifada is also a competition between these, These now two dominant political forces, Hamas and Fatah. Right. Fatah was for the peace process. They signed the Oslo Accords and. And Hamas, they were violently opposed to Oslo and recognition of Israel and all of that. And if Hamas is leading the charge on violent resistance, it sort of made it inevitable that Batah people would also eventually have to do the same if they want to compete for the hearts and minds of Palestinians. And the way to do that, the way to compete for the hearts and minds, is through resistance. That is the currency of Palestinian politics. People who have the resistance credentials are the people that Palestinians respect the most. And that, I think that explains a lot of Marwan Barouti's popularity today.
- [44:15]
B
He was mulling a ceasefire. By the spring of 2002, a lot of Palestinians began to regret that these tactics were claiming lives and weren't very effective. Advancing the cause. He used a mobile phone in April of that year that happened to be tracked by Shin Beth. So they able to find where he was and they arrested him. And that's basically the last we've seen of him. From 2002 to today, his name is in the headlines. Just to bring this full circle again. Do you see any set of circumstances where he might be released? Maybe if the Trump administration pressures Netanyahu. There have been times when President Trump has decided he wants to pressure Netanyahu. He gets some results out of it. It.
- [44:59]
A
It's true. I mean, and the president, of course, is not always consistent in his approach to this issue. But what I found interesting is that even President Trump. Iman has landed on President Trump's radar to the point where he mentioned him by name as someone that, you know. Yes, maybe we will try to push the Israelis on this. So he's clearly been briefed on the significance of this individual. I can envision a scenario in which. Which Marwan is released, but it would require a very different Israeli government than the one that exists now. The one that exists now is so extreme and so nihilistic in its approach to Palestinians. There's no accommodation. There's no doubt that there are elements inside the Israeli security establishment who are looking at the situation in the West Bank. They see a Palestinian Authority that is in a state of slow motion collapse. They see chaos in Gaza and they see this as not necessarily in Israel's interests. There are pragmatic elements in the Israeli security establishment who understand that a total collapse, a total chaos will have reverberations for Israeli security and that there is a need for a coherent Palestinian leadership. Maybe at some point, point those voices will come to the fore. But right now, Israeli leadership is dominated by people who look at the world in zero sum. And that is Israel can only exist as it is with no such thing as a Palestinian. There can be no Palestinian nationality. There can be no accommodation, political accommodation with the Palestinian nationalism. And those things need to be destroyed. So if that were to change, then I could see, you know, with considerable American pressure and an international campaign, maybe some rational individuals in Israel would emerge and say, yes, a cohesive, unitary Palestinian leadership is actually in our interest. But we're not there.
- [47:06]
B
There are pragmatic voices going all the way back to 1967 who said occupying the west bank in East Jerusalem is a mistake and we should not do it. It. But they did not win out. Now, I mean, what would Barghouti be in charge of, presumably the Palestinian Authority?
- [47:25]
A
We don't know. What we know is that he's quite popular and that anytime his name is floated in polls, he consistently comes out on top of any other candidate as the President of the Palestinian Authority or even as head of the plo. He is more popular in some cases than the nearest candidates combined. Certainly more popular than Mahmoud Abbas, who is hugely, hugely unpopular. And in that sense, I, I think Marwan is the anti Abbas. He's everything that Mahmoud Abbas is not. Abbas lives comfortably in his compound and in his, his home. His people have VIP status. They don't pay any immediate price. And Marwan, of course, is paying a very heavy price on behalf of the Palestinian cause, that's something that Palestinians notice and respect.
- [48:18]
B
Well, Abbas is also quite old, so there's that.
- [48:21]
A
Yeah, exactly, exactly. And even though, you know, Marwan at 66 is not necessarily, I wouldn't call him youth in comparison to this very geriatric leadership that is in place now. He does represent the New Guard, but I think even he would understand that his role would probably be transitional. He's someone who could unify Palestinians while the infrastructure of the Palestinian national movement is being rebuilt. And I think he understands that. He's not. I can't speak for him. I don't know what he understands or doesn't, but I see Marwan's role as someone. Palestinians need a symbol that they can rally around. There needs to be unitary address for the Palestinian people. Marwan, if he's released and if he's in a mental state that he's capable of doing this, then I think he could play that sort of transitional role to help Palestinians weather the current storm and to come out on the other side. Because right now they are facing an existential threat in Gaza, certainly, but even in the West Bank. Mahmoud Abbas is not the leader that Palestinians need in this catastrophic existential moment. Marwan may not be the savior, but he could be the captain of a ship who can weather the storm over the next few years until the ship can be repaired.
- [49:54]
B
For the Israeli Palestinian conflict, as all of us have seen, knows no status quo. It can move forward toward real peace or it can slide back into turmoil. It will not stand still if the parties do not seize this moment. If they cannot make progress now, there will be more hostility and more bitterness, perhaps even more violence. On the next episode of History as it Happens, we'll return to the Cold War war on the big screen. Remember 1984's Red Dawn? That's next. As we report history as it happens and also consider becoming a subscriber to this podcast, go to history as it happens.supercast.com that's history as it happens supercast.com Marketing is hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ad go to Libsynads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.
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