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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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US Clamps Sanctions on Israel-bashing UN Rights Monitor Albanese
Francesca Albanese, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories, attends a side event during the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, March 26, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
The Trump administration has imposed sweeping sanctions against Francesca Albanese, the United Nations Special Rapporteur for the Occupied Palestinian Territories, citing the UN official’s lengthy record of singling out Israel for condemnation.
In a post on X, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced the sanctions under a February executive order targeting those who “prompt International Criminal Court (ICC) action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives.” He accused Albanese of waging “political and economic warfare” against both nations and asserted that “such efforts will no longer be tolerated.”
“Today I am imposing sanctions on UN Human Rights Council Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese for her illegitimate and shameful efforts to prompt [International Criminal Court] action against U.S. and Israeli officials, companies, and executives,” Rubio announced on X/Twitter.
“Albanese’s campaign of political and economic warfare against the United States and Israel will no longer be tolerated,” declared the Trump administration’s top foreign affairs official. “We will always stand by our partners in their right to self-defense.”
Rubio concluded: “The United States will continue to take whatever actions we deem necessary to respond to lawfare and protect our sovereignty and that of our allies.”
The decision to impose sanctions on Albanese marks an escalation in the ongoing feud between the White House and the United Nations over Israel. The Trump administration has repeatedly accused the UN and Albanese of unfairly targeting Israel and mischaracterizing the Jewish state’s conduct in Gaza.
Albanese, an Italian lawyer and academic, has held the position of UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories since 2022. The position authorizes her to monitor and report on alleged “human rights violations” by Israel against Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
Last week, Albanese issued a scathing report accusing companies of helping Israel maintain a so-called “genocide economy.” She called on the companies to cut off economic ties with Israel and warned that they might be guilty of “complicity” in the so-called “genocide” in Gaza.
Critics of Albanese have long accused her of exhibiting an excessive anti-Israel bias, calling into question her fairness and neutrality.
Albanese has an extensive history of using her role at the UN to denigrate Israel and seemingly rationalize Hamas’ attacks on the Jewish state.
In the months following the Palestinian terrorist group’s atrocities across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, Albanese accused the Jewish state of perpetrating a “genocide” against the Palestinian people in revenge for the attacks and circulated a widely derided and heavily disputed report alleging that 186,000 people had been killed in the Gaza war as a result of Israeli actions.
The action comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu visits Washington, where he has received a warm reception from the Trump administration. Netanyahu has been meeting with US officials to discuss next steps in the ongoing Gaza military operation.
Gideon Sa’ar, Minister of Foreign Affairs for Israel, commended the Rubio announcement with his own post on X/Twitter, exclaiming: “A clear message. Time for the UN to pay attention!”
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Hardball: Trump Administration Reports Harvard to Accreditor Over Antisemitism Allegations
US President Donald Trump speaks during a Cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, DC, July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
The Trump administration escalated its showdown against Harvard University on Wednesday, reporting the institution to its accreditor for alleged civil rights violations resulting from its weak response to reports of antisemitic bullying, discrimination, and harassment following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 massacre across southern Israel.
The US Department of Education (DOE) announced the action on Wednesday. Citing Harvard’s admitted failure to treat antisemitism as seriously as it treated others forms of hatred in the past, the DOE called on the New England Commission of Higher Education to review and, potentially, revoke its accreditation — a designation which qualifies Harvard for federal funding and attests to the quality of the educational services its provides.
“Accrediting bodies play a significant role in preserving academic integrity and a campus culture conducive to truth seeking and learning,” said Secretary of Education Linda McMahon. “Part of that is ensuring students are safe on campus and abiding by federal laws that guarantee educational opportunities to all students. By allowing anti-Semitic harassment and discrimination to persist unchecked on its campus, Harvard University has failed in its obligation to students, educators, and American taxpayers.”
The DOE, McMahon added, “expects the New England Commission of Higher Education to enforce its policies and practices, and to keep the Department fully informed of its efforts to ensure that Harvard is in compliance with federal law and accreditor standards.”
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, Harvard’s Presidential Task Force on Combating Antisemitism has acknowledged that the university administration’s handling of campus antisemitism fell well below its obligations under both Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and its own nondiscrimination policies.
In a 300-plus-page report, the task force compiled a comprehensive record of antisemitic incidents on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon depicting Jews as murderers of people of color. The report identified Harvard’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups as a key source of its problem.
Coming several weeks after President Donald Trump ordered the freeze of $2.26 billion in federal research grants and contracts for Harvard, the task force report found it was “clear” that antisemitism and anti-Israel bias have been fomented, practiced, and tolerated not only at Harvard but also within academia more widely.”
The university is now suing the federal government over the funding halt.
President Trump has spoken scathingly of Harvard, calling it, for example, an “Anti-Semitic, Far Left Institute … with students being accepted from all over the world that want to rip our Country apart” in an April post to his Truth Social platform.
In recent weeks, however, both Trump and McMahon had commended Harvard’s constructive response in negotiations over reforms the administration has asked it to implement as a precondition for restoring federal funds. The requested reforms include hiring more conservative faculty, shuttering diversity, equity, and inclusion [DEI] programs, and slashing the size of administrative offices tangential to the university’s central educational mission.
The administration has since changed its tone in the wake of a report by The Harvard Crimson that interim Harvard President Alan Garber has said “behind closed doors” that he has no intention of doing anything that would make Harvard more palatable to conservatives.
Earlier this month, the Trump administration’s Joint Task Force to Combat Antisemitism issued Harvard a formal “notice of violation” of civil rights law. Charging that Harvard willfully exposed Jewish students to a flood of racist and antisemitic abuse both in and outside of the classroom, it threatened to strip whatever remains of Harvard’s federal funding.
“Failure to institute adequate changes immediately will result in the loss of all federal financial resources and continue to affect Harvard’s relationship with the federal government,” wrote the federal officials comprising the multiagency Task Force. “Harvard may of course continue to operate free of federal privileges, and perhaps such an opportunity will spur a commitment to excellence that will help Harvard thrive once again.”
In Wednesday’s announcement, US Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Harvard’s conduct “forfeits the legitimacy that accreditation is designed to uphold.”
“HHS and Department of Education will actively hold Harvard accountable through sustained oversight until it restores public trust and ensures a campus free of discrimination,” he said.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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IDF Strikes Hezbollah Sites in South Lebanon as Terror Group Pushes to Rebuild Amid US Disarmament Talks
IDF operating in southern Lebanon. Photo: IDF Spokesperson
Israeli forces uncovered and destroyed Hezbollah weapons caches in southern Lebanon on Wednesday, as a new report indicated that despite ongoing U.S.-led efforts to secure a disarmament deal, the Iran-backed group is making repeated, largely concealed attempts to rebuild its military presence in the area.
Troops carried out several operations targeting Hezbollah infrastructure in southern Lebanon on Wednesday morning, destroying weapons depots, explosives and multibarrel launchers concealed in forested terrain, the IDF said, in violation of the November ceasefire, which requires Hezbollah to withdraw its forces 20 miles from the Israeli border.
A new report released this week by the Alma Research and Education Center found that Hezbollah is focused on rebuilding in three areas: operational deployment, weapons acquisition, and financial recovery.
“Hezbollah didn’t give up its resistance narrative and motivation,” Alma’s director, Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, told The Algemeiner.
“It wants to rebuild its capabilities and infrastructures, whether it’s the villages that will be used as human shields or the military infrastructure in South Lebanon and in Lebanon in general.”
According to Zehavi, Hezbollah is attempting to return Radwan fighters to positions south of the Litani River as part of a wider plan to restore its elite forces to operational readiness. The IDF on Monday killed Radwan commander Ali Abd al-Hassan Haidar in a targeted strike. The action came hours after US Special Envoy for Syria Thomas Barrack met with Lebanese President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam and Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri in Beirut to discuss a long-term deal that would include an Israeli withdrawal and complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
Barrack described the Lebanese response to the proposal as positive. Later, he issued a blunt warning to Hezbollah in response to a vow by the terror group’s leader, Naim Qassem, not to lay down its arms. “If they mess with us anywhere in the world, they will have a serious problem with us,” Barrack said in an interview with Lebanese news network LBCI. “They don’t want that.”
Zehavi said it was premature to predict the outcome of the diplomatic efforts. She warned that the challenge of disarming Hezbollah remains enormous and emphasized that the Lebanese Armed Forces have not demonstrated the capability or willingness to confront the group.
“It’s too soon to be optimistic or pessimistic,” she said, noting that no firm commitments have emerged from the Beirut talks.
Hezbollah’s efforts to smuggle and manufacture weapons have been complicated by both Israeli strikes and the regional realignment over recent months. While Israeli strikes have disrupted many supply routes, according to Zehavi, Syrian authorities have intercepted far more Hezbollah-bound weapons than the Lebanese Army, which claims to have uncovered 500 arms caches but has provided no evidence.
The financial front marks the third aspect of Hezbollah’s rebuilding effort. Last week, the group halted cash payments to Shiite civilians whose homes were damaged in the war, citing liquidity problems. Zehavi attributed the shortfall to disruptions in Iran’s funding networks — an outcome of the 12-day war against the regime in Tehran — and said the constraints would likely hamper Hezbollah’s ability to compensate its base and sustain operations.
“I hope they will continue to have problems with the cash flow, that way it will be very difficult for them to recover,” she said.
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