Although it has been taken for twenty-two years, its popularity among Palestinians remains intact. With his release, Hamas would score a point, but for Israel he is a "murderer" and a potential challenge to the status quo.
His name has led the polls among Palestinians for two decades. His image, with handcuffed hands and V-fingered victory gesture, is one of the most widely portrayed in the occupied West Bank. His profile, in essence, resurfaces in every crisis as a unifier of the Palestinian cause.
That's why it's no surprise that Marwan Barguti is once again on everyone's lips. He is one of the few prisoners – out of more than 8,000 Palestinians locked up in Israeli prisons – that Hamas has claimed by name in negotiations with Israel for an exchange of Palestinian prisoners for Israeli hostages in Gaza. A condition that the Government of Benjamin Netanyahu does not seem ready to accept.
Barghouti is, in Israeli eyes, a "murderer" and "terrorist", as Netanyahu himself defined him in 2017 after speaking badly of The New York Times for having published a column written by this Palestinian reference from Hadarim prison, near Tel-Aviv. Then he led a hunger strike with more than a thousand Palestinian prisoners demanding better conditions.
Israeli prisons have been part of the trajectory of this 64-year-old man, originally from the Palestinian village of Kobar. He met them for the first time at the age of 15 and then frequented them during his university days, when he became a student leader within Yasser Arafat's secular Al-Fatah movement.
He affirmed his popularity in his charisma and his appearance as a common Palestinian, and he was also the face of the two intifadas. In the first, his role as a protest organizer earned him deportation to Jordan, where he stayed until he was allowed to return after the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993. In the second, disillusioned for the peace process and as head of an armed faction of Al-Fatah – Tanzim–, he led funerals and marches against the occupation until he was arrested by Israel in 2002.
Accused of having founded the Al-Aqsa Brigades (the armed arm of Al-Fatah with links to Tanzim), Barghouti was sentenced to five life sentences for his alleged involvement in five murders of Israeli civilians. He did not defend himself during the trial because he refused to recognize the authority of the Israeli court, although he always denied the charges.
For Fathi Nimer, an analyst at the Palestinian think tank Al-Xabaka, being imprisoned for twenty years "strengthened" the figure of Barghuti. "Palestinians consider that the legitimacy of their political leaders comes from their contribution on the ground and whether they are part of the resistance", he assures La Vanguardia.
This is also the origin of his nickname, the Palestinian Nelson Mandela, due to the parallel with the former South African president, not only because of the years in prison but because he is a defender of peaceful resistance, without renouncing violence as a response to occupation.
Likewise, during his years as a legislator, Barghouti denounced the corruption and human rights abuses of Arafat's government, and he has gradually distanced himself from Al-Fatah, today associated with the failed administration of Mahmud Abbas to the Palestinian Authority.
"This means that he is conceived as someone who is not corrupt, who has spent his life in the resistance and in prison - affirms Nimer-. He is accepted not only by the followers of Al-Fatah, but also by the majority of independents and is one of the few non-members of Hamas who has sympathy among his supporters”.
Being seen as "a kind of middle ground" between "two polarizing forces" such as Al-Fatah and Hamas is, according to Al-Xabaka's political scientist, one of the reasons why the Islamist group is pressing for his release. "They see him as a unifying force, and if there is any hope of reunifying the West Bank and Gaza and reviving a national project for the Palestinians, Barghouti is the most capable of carrying it out."
Along these lines, adds Nimer, he could "mobilize the people" and "challenge the status quo", something that makes him a potential leader to be feared for Israel, which "is very happy with the status quo", which "it allows him to have complete control of the territory between the river [Jordan] and the sea [Mediterranean] without assuming any responsibility towards the population he occupies", he adds.
For this reason, for this analyst, Barguti is "almost an expression of desire" because "there are no real signs that could release him". Nor is it clear what style someone who has been behind bars for decades and whose influence lives on thanks to his indefatigable wife, Fadwa, would assume.
It's an increasingly unlikely scenario, especially since Israel's security minister, the extremist Itamar Ben-Gvir, ordered him transferred from prison for the third time in five months and placed in solitary confinement. This after accusing him of having planned "a new intifada". A way to sink deeper into the darkness the man who, for many Palestinians and even some Israeli analysts, represents a unique hope.
