Exerting Influence From an Israeli Cell

He’s jailed, isolated and on trial for terrorism, but Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti still holds sway over turbulent Palestinian politics. Last week, Israel’s most famous Palestinian prisoner reached beyond his cell to craft a fragile truce. Now, his fate could be an early measure of whether that peace will stick or fail.

Barghouti’s enduring influence became plain when, working in solitary confinement and sending messages through his lawyers, he did what a bevy of negotiators in the Gaza Strip, Egypt and Syria couldn’t: coax Palestinian resistance groups to promise to put aside their guns and stop killing Israelis during a three-month cease-fire, or hudna.

Barghouti -- the accused head of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, a militia linked to Fatah -- joined the cease-fire talks late. But in the end, when disagreements threatened to crack the foundation of the truce, it was letters from Barghouti that saved the accord among Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Fatah, said Palestinian and diplomatic sources familiar with the long weeks of negotiations.

The short, intense Barghouti is the figurehead of the powerful “young guard” of Palestinian politics, a handful of grass-roots activists who cut their teeth in the gritty days of the first intifada, which began in 1987, and who are expected to one day take the place of Fatah founder Yasser Arafat and other aging leaders. Fatah is the most powerful Palestinian political movement.

“His street credibility allowed the factions to hide behind him,” said Diana Buttu, a legal advisor to Arafat’s Palestine Liberation Organization. “They could go to their people and say, ‘It’s not us; it’s Marwan Barghouti.’ ”

Motive Unclear

It’s not clear why Barghouti sent a message to Arafat from his jail cell asking permission to join the talks. Maybe it was a ploy for his freedom, or a bid for political power. Perhaps, as his lawyer says, Barghouti saw a glimmer of hope in the peace plan known as the “road map,” and sought to lead his people to statehood. Or maybe it was a little bit of all three.

Whatever his motive, Barghouti’s intervention got his name back on the lips of top officials on both sides. Now, with cease-fire in hand, Palestinians are lobbying hard for Barghouti’s freedom. Moderate Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is calling for his release; so are the fiery leaders of Hamas.

Buttu said Palestinians are quietly counting on the Israelis to fulfill two key demands to keep the cease-fire going: a stop to the assassinations of militants, and the freedom of Barghouti. “They need him,” she said. Prisoner release isn’t mentioned in the peace plan, but Palestinians have said they can’t go forward unless Israel frees thousands of detainees.

But even among his ardent supporters, there is only a faint optimism that Barghouti will be freed anytime soon. Israel has scant patience for Barghouti, who has openly advocated the use of violence. Many would regard his freedom as a reward for bloodshed. Barghouti faces life in prison for “initiating, financing or planning 37 terror attacks” that killed dozens of Israelis, prosecutors say. He says he is innocent, but his ability to squelch militant attacks last week was a fresh reminder of his influence.

Under Israeli law, Barghouti can’t be turned loose until a judge has ruled on his case, which has been working its way through the Tel Aviv courts. Still, the call for his freedom is strong enough to make the prosecution nervous: Israeli Atty. Gen. Elyakim Rubenstein sent a letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon in which he called Barghouti a “first-rate architect of terror” and insisted he should be held until his trial ends.

But the final decision will be out of the justice system’s hands. “It really is a political issue,” said Justice Ministry spokesman Yaacov Galanti.

The trial is expected to last months -- but Palestinians and analysts say the cease-fire’s strength may hinge on Israel’s willingness to free Barghouti. He and his friends ordered up peace, they say, and they can cancel it too.

“If the young guard feels he won’t be released, they’ll be tempted to violate the cease-fire,” Palestinian pollster and analyst Khalil Shikaki said. “His release is critical for the success of the whole process.”

From a mainstream Palestinian point of view, Barghouti’s release would be long overdue. The Palestinian public was outraged when Israeli special forces hunted down Barghouti, an elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, in April 2002 and swept him off to an Israeli jail.

Critics have dismissed his trial, during which prosecutors sought to link Arafat, the Palestinian Authority president, to the spate of attacks on Israelis, as a theatrical piece of propaganda. Lawyer Jawad Boulos says his client is being held in a “filthy, disgusting” cell, and Barghouti has said he’s been tortured.

“It’s crucial he be released,” longtime Palestinian peace negotiator Saeb Erekat said. “Instead of having Marwan in jail, the Israelis should make sure he stands at the top of the list of future Palestinian leaders.”

Barghouti’s role in the cease-fire taps into one of Israel’s bitter complaints about the U.S.-backed “road map” -- that it depends upon the whims of the very militants who have been killing Jews for months.

Moreover, it could hinge on the complicated character of Barghouti, who is both a nemesis and a sometime helper of the Jewish state. He is a secular voice in a landscape of increasingly radicalized Islam; a speaker of English and Hebrew who used to meet Israeli politicians for peace talks. Palestinians and Israelis laud him for steering clear of the corruption that has tainted many of Arafat’s cadre.

Post-Arafat Perspective

Even when he’s throwing out taunts in an Israeli courtroom, Barghouti represents the possibility of political life after Arafat.

“We used to look at him as one of the peacemakers, but now Israelis look at him in a very ambivalent way,” said Yohanan Tsoref, an analyst with Israel’s International Policy Institute for Counter-Terrorism. “One person will tell you he’s a great danger; the other will tell you, ‘Look, we know who he is, we know what he believes in.’ ”

Barghouti, 45, came of age during the first intifada. A history student at the West Bank’s Birzeit University, he emerged as a leading activist at a time when the campus seethed with violent demonstrations. Israel shut the university for four years, and Barghouti served his first stint in an Israeli prison. Later, he was deported to Jordan.

In 1993, Israeli and Palestinian leaders signed the Oslo peace agreement, and a hopeful Barghouti came home. Elected to represent Ramallah in the newly formed Legislative Council, Barghouti pushed hard to make peace last -- he advocated restraint and patience; urged skeptical peers to recognize Israel’s right to exist; and foresaw the calm coexistence of two states, Israel and Palestine.

But in 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was gunned down by a young, enraged Israeli who believed the peace process would “give our land to the Arabs.” Next came Benjamin Netanyahu, an uncompromising hawk who dragged his feet on the Oslo obligations while a wounded Jewish mainstream hardened its stance toward Palestinian statehood.

Toward the end of the 1990s, Barghouti disappointed the Israeli left -- but won the wholehearted devotion of the Palestinian street -- when he concluded that the time for peace had passed and put out a call to arms. It was his insistence that only a violent uprising could rattle Israel enough to deliver Palestinian statehood that made a folk hero of Barghouti.

“You don’t want to stop the occupation and you don’t want to stop the settlements, so the only way to convince you is by force,” he told a reporter for the Hebrew newspaper Maariv in fall 2001.

Barghouti personifies one of the themes that underpin the intifada -- the quest of the younger generation of Palestinian leaders to overcome their forebears and lead their people, at last, to statehood. Some analysts maintain that the intifada erupted not only because Palestinians were tired of waiting for independence but also because younger leaders were weary of watching their elders fumble.

Even during his imprisonment, Barghouti’s popularity has swelled, and he is still seen as a likely successor to Arafat. From jail, Barghouti has lashed out against the Palestinian leadership, calling for the resignation of corrupt figures.

His elders may need him now, but he still poses something of a political threat. His work in securing this cease-fire made the Palestinian leadership, including the newly anointed Prime Minister Abbas, look extraneous.

“I believe Marwan wants to get out, participate in elections and become prime minister,” Shikaki said. “Then all of the aristocracy of the founding fathers, all of that, will be swept away.”