20 November 2009 / REUTERS, RAMALLAH
Peace talks with Israel have failed and the Palestinians must launch popular and diplomatic campaigns to achieve statehood, Marwan Barghouti said in an interview from his prison cell.
Still popular and articulate despite five years behind bars, the 50-year-old activist is seen by some as a Palestinian Nelson Mandela, the man who could galvanize a drifting and divided national movement if only he were set free by Israel. With US peace diplomacy at a standstill, Barghouti said, there is no justification for the split between the Fatah movement he belongs to and the Hamas Islamists who control Gaza. “I do not see that there are fundamental political differences between Fatah and Hamas,” said Barghouti, a leading figure in the two Intifadas, or uprisings against Israeli occupation, waged by the Palestinians since 1987. Convicted of murder for his role in attacks on Israelis, Barghouti was jailed for life by Israel in 2004 during the second Intifada, which broke out in 2000. From his prison cell he responded in writing to questions from Reuters delivered by his lawyers. Before his arrest, Barghouti had been seen as a contender to succeed Yasser Arafat as Palestinian leader -- a position assumed by current Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas after Arafat’s death in 2004.
