Palestinian Leader Receives Life Sentence in Israeli Court

Palestinian rights activist Marwan Barhgouti was sentenced by an Israeli court June 6 to five consecutive life sentences and 40 additional years in prison. Barghouti, a leader of Fatah who has called for Palestinian struggle against the occupation but condemned attacks on civilians, rejected the court's verdict, declaring that as a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, an Israeli court had no jurisdiction to try him unless he had been extradited by the Palestinian Authority. He also denounced the bias of the Israeli court system against Palestinians and said in his case, the judges were "receiving instructions from the security services."

Barghouti was convicted of involvement in the shooting deaths of two people and direct responsibility for the shooting death of three Israelis. The court also found Barghouti responsible for an unsuccessful attempted suicide bombing. The prosecution tried to link Barghouti to suicide bombings within Israel that resulted in the deaths of tens of Israeli civilians, but was unable to make its case.

Throughout his trial, Barghouti refused to recognize the legitimacy of Israel trying a Palestinian for resisting its colonial occupation. He pointed out that the United Nations General Assembly has recognized the right of any people to resist occupation as part of the struggle for national self-determination.

Barghouti has been held prisoner by Israeli forces since they kidnapped him in April 2002. In violation of the Geneva Convention, he was held for days without access to legal representation and for months without being formally charged. His family has been denied the right to visit him and he has accused his jailers of torturing him to try and extract confessions.

This is not Barghouti's first taste of Israeli justice. In 1978, as a young activist fighting for better conditions in the West Bank refugee camps, he was arrested and charged for his membership in Fatah, at that time a banned organization. He spent four-and-a-half years in jail for this crime. He was subjected to torture including beatings and electric shock treatment before finally being released. He was elected to Fatah's Revolutionary Governing Council in 1989 and, in 1994, was named the Secretary-General of Fatah in the occupied West Bank.

Barghouti was initially a supporter of the Oslo peace accords and campaigned vigorously in their defence. However, in 1998, frustrated with the slow pace of talks and angered by the Israeli Labour government of Ehud Barak, which continued building settlements in the occupied territories at a frantic pace, he called on the Palestinian Authority to cease all negotiations until the Israelis froze settlement construction and committed to dismantling all settlements.

The Palestinian Authority refused, and Barghouti emerged as one of the most passionate spokespeople against what he saw as a fradulent peace process designed to lull Palestinians into a false sense of nationhood while Israel proceeded to entrench itself in the occupied territories. He became one of the most prominent spokespeople of the mass campaign that emerged in the West Bank to demand an immediate end to the occupation, a campaign which metamorphisized into the second intifada. In an interview at the time, he told a reporter "We tried seven years of intifada without negotiations, and then seven years of negotiations without intifada; perhaps it is time to try both simultaneously."

Shortly after the September 11 attacks against the U.S., Barghouti, well known for his secular views and intolerance for religious fanaticism, began openly challenging the tactics of suicide bombings adopted by groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad. At the same time, despite immense pressure, he refused to disavow armed struggle against the Israeli occupation.

In an opinion piece published in the Washington Post in January 2002, he wrote, "The only way for Israelis to have security is, quite simply, to end the 35-year-old Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Israelis must abandon the myth that it is possible to have peace and occupation at the same time, that peaceful coexistence is possible between slave and master. … If Israel reserves the right to bomb us with F-16s and helicopter gunships, it should not be surprised when Palestinians seek defensive weapons to bring those aircraft down. And while 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. If Palestinians are expected to negotiate under occupation, then Israel must be expected to negotiate as we resist that occupation. I am not a terrorist, but neither am I a pacifist. I am simply a regular guy from the Palestinian street advocating only what every other oppressed person has advocated -- the right to help myself in the absence of help from anywhere else."

Within four months after the article was published, Barghouti was in jail.