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How the Media Turned a Terrorist Mastermind Into the ‘Palestinian Nelson Mandela’
Marwan Barghouti gestures as Israeli police bring him into the District Court for his judgment hearing in Tel Aviv, May 20, 2004. Photo: Reuters / Pool / David Silverman.
The “Palestinian Nelson Mandela” (Associated Press).
A “political prisoner” (Times of London).
The man most likely to serve “as a credible negotiator of a Palestinian state” (former Human Rights Watch chief Ken Roth).
These are just some of the terms that have been used to describe Marwan Barghouti in both traditional media and social media ever since it was revealed that, as part of its negotiations with Israel, Hamas is demanding Barghouti’s release from prison.
With Barghouti’s name back in the headlines, this is a good opportunity to remind both the media and the general public about who he really is and what his potential release could mean for Israel, the Palestinian Authority (PA), and regional stability.
No, @thetimes, Marwan Barghouti is not a “political prisoner.” He was convicted for the murder of five innocent civilians in three terrorist attacks.
Writing a puff piece portraying him as a Palestinian Nelson Mandela is insultingly premature.https://t.co/HMxZYI2SF5 pic.twitter.com/EXT0XOtMps
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) February 5, 2024
Born in the West Bank in 1959, Marwan Barghouti’s introduction to Palestinian terrorism came at the age of 15, when he joined Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement.
At that time, Fatah had already conducted numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians and civilian infrastructure.
At the age of 19, Barghouti was imprisoned by Israel for four years for his role in a Fatah terror attack.
In 1987, Barghouti was charged with anti-Israel incitement and deported by Israel to Jordan.
In 1994, as part of the Oslo Accords, he returned to the West Bank and became heavily involved in Palestinian politics, gaining a seat in the 1996 Palestinian Legislative Council election.
In the late 1990s, Barghouti became the head of Fatah’s Tanzim faction, which was responsible for internal security but also led Fatah’s terrorist campaign against Israel during the Second Intifada.
Barghouti is also alleged to have been a founding member and senior official in the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, a Fatah-affiliated terrorist organization founded in 2000.
While Barghouti was initially supportive of the Oslo peace process in the late 1990s, he became more militant by the turn of the century, believing that only violence could bring about a final status agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.
In 2000, Barghouti took a leading role in fomenting the Nakba Day riots in May and was instrumental in inciting the Temple Mount riots in September. The latter is widely seen as the beginning of the violent Second Intifada period.
Between 2000 and 2002, Barghouti headed Fatah in the West Bank, led the Tanzim and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, and headed the umbrella organization of Islamic and national forces, which was responsible for much of the terrorist activity during that time.
Initially, Barghouti advocated for focusing violence against Israeli soldiers and settlers (including men, women and children) but then expanded his campaign of terror to all of Israel.
In 2002, Barghouti was arrested by Israeli forces, and, in 2004, he was sentenced by the Tel Aviv District Court to five consecutive life terms for his role in the deaths of five victims of terror.
These victims included four Israelis murdered in two separate terror attacks (a shooting at a gas station near Jerusalem and a shooting/hand grenade attack at a Tel Aviv restaurant), and a Greek monk who was shot while driving near Jerusalem.
In addition, the court also found Barghouti guilty of orchestrating a failed suicide bombing outside a mall in Jerusalem and convicted him of heading a terrorist network.
In its verdict, the court found that Barghouti was morally responsible for many other attacks through his encouragement of terrorism, and was a key actor in acquiring funding from Yasser Arafat for Fatah terrorists.
Since his imprisonment, Barghouti has developed a mythic persona, portrayed as an ultimately peace-seeking Palestinian leader who is the only one able to unify the Palestinian factions and realistically attain a final status agreement with Israel.
However, this myth is unproven even if some media wish it were the reality.
In the more than 20 years that Barghouti has been in prison, he has made a number of statements, some of which appear to advocate for peace while others are more violent.
For example, in January 2012, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported that Barghouti had announced to reporters while at a court appearance that the withdrawal of Israel to the 1967 lines would bring an end to the conflict.
However, less than three months later, Barghouti smuggled out a message from prison that called on the Palestinians to halt peace negotiations with and boycott Israel, and sever all cooperation between the Palestinian Authority and Israel (including security coordination). The end of security coordination would ultimately lead to the rise in anti-Israel terror activities.
In 2014, Barghouti made two public statements, claiming the right of Palestinians to “resistance in all its forms” and advocating for the “re-adoption of the ‘resistance’ option” by the Palestinians.
As late as December 2023, as Israel was in the midst of battling Hamas in Gaza following the October 7 massacre, Barghouti released a message that called on the Palestinians in the West Bank to join the “resistance” against Israel, and specifically called on members of the Palestinian security services to turn their weapons against Israel.
It is commonly claimed that, as a popular Palestinian figure, Marwan Barghouti is the first in line to replace Mahmoud Abbas as president of the Palestinian Authority and that he will be able to both reform the PA and steer it toward a final status agreement with Israel.
However, according to analysts, this might not be the case.
In its study of Barghouti, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center notes that the idea that Barghouti (who has been absent from the forefront of inter-Palestinian politics for over 20 years) is capable of becoming a Nelson Mandela-like figure, uniting all the Palestinian factions while re-igniting peace talks with Israel, is exaggerated.
While Barghouti’s long imprisonment and leadership of the Second Intifada have made him a popular figure on the Palestinian street, it is unclear if he enjoys the status that the Western media applies to him.
Even as far back as 2009, the Jerusalem Post’s Khaled Abu Toameh wrote that Marwan Barghouti’s image as the Palestinian Nelson Mandela was more a construct of the foreign media and less a sentiment shared by Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
As an example of how Barghouti’s image might be larger than his actual influence, the Meir Amit Center points out that under his leadership, the 2017 Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike “was not overwhelmingly supported by the Fatah leadership and the PA, or the Palestinian public.”
It’s not only his questionable popularity that clouds the media’s glorification of Marwan Barghouti and anticipation of his possible release.
As Seth Mandel notes in a recent article for Commentary Magazine, Mahmoud Abbas is still clinging on to power as head of the PA. The release of his “more popular rival” is “a recipe for chaos.”
The havoc created by Palestinian infighting coupled with Barghouti’s well-known tactic of using terrorism to put pressure on Israel is a perfect storm that may lead the region into further violence and turmoil.
Thus, while the foreign media and political commentators may be laying the groundwork for welcoming Marwan Barghouti’s release, it is important to keep in mind that, despite the impression promoted by the media of a Palestinian Nelson Mandela, he is a convicted terrorist mastermind whose entrance into Palestinian politics may lead to more violence and a further deterioration of the security situation for both Palestinians and Israelis.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
The post How the Media Turned a Terrorist Mastermind Into the ‘Palestinian Nelson Mandela’ first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘No Masks!’ Trump Tells Universities to Stop Illegal Protests or Lose Funding
US President Donald speaking in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, in Washington, DC on March 3, 2025. Photo: Leah Millis via Reuters Connect
US President Donald Trump vowed on Tuesday to suspend federal funding to any educational institution that refuses to quell riotous demonstrations, a punitive measure which continues his administration’s pledge to crack down on campus antisemitism and the pro-Hamas activists fostering it.
“All federal funding will stop for any college, school, or university that allows illegal protests,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social, the social media platform he founded in 2022. “Agitators will be imprisoned/or permanently sent back to the country from which they came. American students will be permanently expelled or, depending on the crime, arrested.”
He continued, “No masks! Thank you for your attention to this matter.”
Trump’s statement follows a slew of campus building occupations covered recently by The Algemeiner.
In New York City, the anti-Zionist group Columbia University Apartheid Divest (CUAD) on Wednesday occupied the Milbank Hall administrative building at Barnard College to protest recent disciplinary sanctions imposed on student activists who raided a classroom to spew pro-Hamas propaganda. Posting on Instagram, the group proclaimed that its members were “flooding the building despite Barnard shutting down campus.” Later, they reportedly assaulted a staff member, who, according to a source familiar with the situation, required medical attention at a local hospital.
Last month, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at Swarthmore College invaded the school’s Parrish Hall dressed like Hamas fighters, their faces wrapped with and concealed by keffiyehs. The move came as a surprise. While the group had announced an “emergency rally” scheduled for noon that day, there was little indication that it planned on commandeering the building and remaining inside of it indefinitely.
By the time the college formally warned the students that their behavior would trigger disciplinary measures, they had shouted slogans through bullhorns, attempted to break into offices that had been locked to keep them out, and pounded the doors of others that refused to admit them access. Meanwhile, SJP collaborators reportedly circumvented security’s lockdown of the building to smuggle food inside. Several students then grew impatient and attempted to end the lockdown themselves by storming the building, and in doing so caused a physical altercation with security, whom they proceeded to pelt with expletives and other imprecations.
Swarthmore has temporarily suspended the group’s permission to operate on the campus while school officials complete an investigation of the incident.
Bowdoin College also saw a building occupation in February, when members of its SJP chapter stormed Smith Union and installed an encampment there in response to Trump’s proposing that the US “take over” the Gaza Strip and transform it into a hub for tourism and economic dynamism. The roughly 50 students residing inside the building had vowed not to leave until Bowdoin agreed to adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
Ultimately, the college imposed light disciplinary sanctions on eight students — who were later given the sobriquet “Bowdoin Eight” by their collaborators — it identified as ringleaders of the unauthorized demonstration, sentencing them to probation.
Tuesday’s statement is not the first time that Trump has warned higher education institutions that failing to rein in anti-Zionist agitators could result in sustained injuries to their financial health.
As a candidate for president, he suggested taxing their lucrative endowment funds, some of which are valued at dollar amounts that equal or eclipse the entire gross domestic product (GDP) of dozens of small but prosperous countries across the world. For example, Harvard University — which recently settled a major antisemitism lawsuit it fought tooth and nail to discredit — is notably richer than the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the Kingdom of Bahrain, and the oil-rich nation of Trinidad and Tobago.
The Trump administration appears to already be preparing to impose financial penalties on colleges and universities.
On Monday, a recently created Task Force to Combat Antisemitism announced that several federal agencies — including the departments of education and human and health service and the General Services Administration — will review over $5 billion worth of federal contracts, grants, and other financial support awarded to Columbia University to “ensure the university is in compliance with federal regulations, including its civil rights responsibilities.”
As The Algemeiner has previously reported, Columbia University remains one of the most hostile campuses for Jews employed by or enrolled in an institution of higher education. Since Oct. 7, 2023, it has produced several indelible examples of campus antisemitism, including a student who proclaimed that Zionist Jews deserve to be murdered and are lucky he is not doing so himself, brutal gang-assaults on Jewish students, and administrative officials who, outraged at the notion that Jews organized to resist anti-Zionism, participated in a group chat in which each member took turns sharing antisemitic tropes that described Jews as privileged and grafting.
“Americans have watched in horror for more than a year now, as Jewish students have been assaulted and harassed on elite university campuses — repeatedly overrun by antisemitic students and agitators,” US Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a press release announcing the pending action. “Institutions that receive federal funds have a responsibility to protect all students from discrimination. Columbia’s apparent failure to uphold their end of this basic agreement raises very questions about the institution’s fitness to continue doing business with the United States government.”
Responding to the news on Monday, Columbia University said it is “fully committed to combatting antisemitism and all forms of discrimination” and that it is “resolute that calling for, promoting, or glorifying violence or terror has no place at our university.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Mike Johnson, Chuck Schumer Invite Israeli Hostages and Their Parents to Trump Speech to Congress
US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson stands in the House of Representatives ahead of US President Joe Biden’s third State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress in the US Capitol in Washington, DC, March 7, 2024. Photo: Shawn Thew/Pool via REUTERS
US congressional leaders Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Mike Johnson (R-LA) have invited some of the Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, and their parents to attend President Donald Trump’s address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday night.
Former hostage Noa Argamani has reportedly accepted the invitation of Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, to attend Trump’s speech. Likewise, Orna Neutra and Ruby Chen, the parents of murdered hostages Omer Neutra and Itay Chen, will attend as guests of Schumer, the Senate’s minority leader.
Johnson said that he feels “honored” that Argamani will attend the US president’s joint address to Congress. The Speaker of the House lauded Argamani for displaying “incredible strength and courage” while being held captive by the Hamas terrorist group in Gaza.
In his statement, Schumer lamented the “vicious cruelty of Hamas,” saying he was inspired by the “perseverance” of both Neutra and Chen.
“I am honored that Noa Argamani will be joining us at President Trump’s joint address to Congress,” Johnson told the New York Post. “Despite experiencing the unimaginable in the hands of Hamas, Noa has demonstrated incredible strength and courage.”
Separately, a group of seven hostages saved from Hamas captivity — Eli Sharabi, Doron Steinbrecher, Keith Siegel, Aviva Siegel, Naama Levy, Omer Shem Tov, and Iair Horn — are expected to visit Washington, DC to meet with Trump administration officials and thank the president for helping to secure their release. In addition, the former hostages are expected to detail their experiences while living in Gaza and push for the release of the remaining hostages.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lauded Sharabi’s resilience and encouraged him to relay his story to Trump.
“I deeply appreciate the courageous way you are sharing your experience, and it is also important that you share it with President Trump,” Netanyahu said on Sunday. “Our goal is to bring all the hostages home – and we will not relent for a moment.”
Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists started the war in Gaza when they murdered 1,200 people and kidnapped 251 hostages during their invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023. Israel responded with a military campaign aimed at freeing the hostages and dismantling Hamas’s military and governing capabilities in the neighboring enclave. The conflict raged for nearly 16 months until both sides agreed to January’s ceasefire and hostage-release deal, the first phase of which lasted six weeks.
Negotiations are underway to possibly extend the ceasefire.
Netanyahu announced on Sunday that Israel would block all aid into Gaza after the Hamas terrorist group rejected a six-week extension of the current agreement. The proposal would mandate that Hamas release half of the remaining Israeli hostages who were kidnapped into Gaza during the beginning of the extension. The rest of the hostages would be released at the end of the extension, if Hamas and Israel can agree on a permanent ceasefire deal. Israel would retain the right to restart the war in Gaza if negotiations are unsuccessful by the 42-day mark.
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Israel Begins Leadership of International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
Yad Vashem Chairman Dani Dayan speaks to the European Jewish Association symposium audience in the Conference Center of Hilton hotel in Krakow, Poland on Jan. 22, 2024. Photo: Dominika Zarzycka/Sipa USA via Reuters Connect
Israel this week assumed the presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), an intergovernmental organization comprising dozens of countries dedicated to combating antisemitism and promoting Holocaust research and education.
Dani Dayan — chairman of Yad Vashem, Israel’s national memorial to the Holocaust in Jerusalem — will represent the Jewish state as chair of IHRA.
“We are at a crossroads of generations, and the responsibility of preserving the memory and sharing the stories of the Holocaust will soon rest solely on our shoulders. The voices of victims and survivors demand that we honor their legacy by standing firm against Holocaust denial, distortion, and hatred,” Dayan said in a statement. “In a world witnessing a dramatic rise in antisemitism and grappling with the challenges and opportunities of emerging technologies, our obligation to historical truth has never been more critical.”
Israel’s presidency of IHRA began on Monday and will run through February 2026.
“The antisemitism that resulted in the Holocaust has not been eradicated from the world. On the contrary, over the past year and a half, we have witnessed it intensifying dramatically, targeting both the Jewish people and the Jewish state,” Israeli Foreign Minister Giden Sa’ar added in his own statement, referring to the historic surge in antisemitic incidents around the world since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, invasion of southern Israel.
“The new antisemites attack Israel’s right to exist and its right to defend itself,” Sa’ar continued. “It is our duty not only to remember the Holocaust but also to ensure the existence of the Jewish state, which serves as the guarantee of Jewish continuity for generations to come, while also preserving and passing on the memory of the Holocaust to future generations.”
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio welcomed Israel as the new president of IHRA.
“Today the United States warmly welcomes the start of Israel’s year-long presidency of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), which is committed to supporting accurate Holocaust commemoration, education, and research,” Rubio said in a press statement. “We also congratulate the United Kingdom on its completion of a highly successful presidency.”
Rubio added, “The United States will partner with Israel during its IHRA presidency to defend the memory and historical fact of the Holocaust and fight the toxic spread of Holocaust denial and distortion and all other forms of antisemitism.”
The top American diplomat warned of an aggressive US response to the ongoing rise in antisemitism.
“Holocaust distortion, a shocking form of antisemitism, has proliferated and the poison of antisemitism continues to spread,” Rubio said. “We see it in violent attacks on Jews, defacement of Holocaust memorials, and dangerous rhetoric in universities and international organizations. President Trump and I have made the United States’ position unmistakably clear: the United States will confront antisemitism with determination and resolve.”
Israel will be taking over IHRA’s presidency from the United Kingdom, which headed the organization for the past year with Lord Eric Pickles serving as chair.
“The aim was to bring out the best in the IHRA, engender confidence in difficult times, and, above all, strengthen the organization,” Pickles said at a handover ceremony in Jerusalem. “Those of us who attended the poignant 80th anniversary ceremony at Auschwitz-Birkenau in January know that we will never see the like again.”
Pickles added that “10 years from now, at the 90th anniversary, it is unlikely there will be Holocaust survivors to speak. We are now the custodians of their memory. We must remember and tell the truth.”
Recent Legislative Efforts Regarding the IHRA Antisemitism Definition
IHRA adopted a “working definition” of antisemitism in 2016. Since then, the definition has been widely accepted by Jewish groups and lawmakers across the political spectrum, and it is now used by hundreds of governing institutions, including the US State Department, European Union, and United Nations. Dozens of US states have also formally adopted it through law or executive action.
In recent months, several additional measures have been taken to expand the definition’s usage.
Last month, for example, Australia’s 39 universities announced that the IHRA working definition of antisemitism would be used in assessing antisemitism on campus. The country has seen a string of antisemitic crimes which authorities suspect foreign actors of masterminding.
On Feb. 20, US Sens. Katie Britt (R-AL), Tim Scott (R-SC), and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) introduced the Antisemitism Awareness Act to implement the definition in the US Department of Education.
“We cannot allow antisemitism to fester in our schools, on our college campuses, or anywhere in our society. This legislation would give the Department of Education the tools to hold students and institutions accountable,” Britt said at the time. “Any American educational institution authorizing, facilitating, or otherwise supporting pro-terrorism activities should lose every cent of federal funding and subsidization.”
On Feb. 26, the Missouri House of Representatives Higher Education and Workforce Development Committee heard the case for a bill to use the IHRA definition at the state’s schools.
Two weeks earlier, the Kansas House Committee on Education received a presentation on a bill to codify the definition for the state’s schools.
On Feb. 3, the Nebraska Legislature Education Committee conducted a hearing for a bill also seeking to implement the IHRA definition in schools.
In late January, state representatives and community members met at the New Jersey statehouse to speak out in support of a bill for the state to adopt the IHRA definition. The legislation’s primary sponsor, Assemblyman Gary Schaer, said that “today we have an opportunity to do something truly profound — pass bipartisan legislation that will protect a religious minority.”
To resolve two lawsuits, Harvard agreed to implement the IHRA definition and to release an annual report for the next five years documenting responses to violations of Title VI of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964.
In January, Oklahoma State Rep. John Waldron, a Democrat elected in Tulsa, put forward legislation to use the IHRA definition in the state’s guide for employees assessing bigotry.
On Jan. 26, the student government of Rutgers University voted down a measure to embrace the definition.
Days earlier, Ireland announced its embrace of the IHRA definition, despite the Irish government’s harsh criticism of Israel and amid a surge of antisemitism in the country.
In December 2024, a group of 24 Israeli colleges announced plans to use the IHRA definition.
The post Israel Begins Leadership of International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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