Convicted Fatah/Tanzin (Palestinian Authority) terrorist leader Marwan Barghouti was placed in solitary confinement after he smuggled out a letter out from Hadarim prison calling on his followers to use “armed resistance” against Israel, a euphemism for terrorism.

He also called on the PA security forces to stop cooperating with Israel.

On May 20, 2004, Barghouti was convicted of 5 counts of murder, including ordering and organizing the Seafood market attack in Tel Aviv, on March 5, 2002, which killed 3 people and wounded 15 more. He is serving 5 lifetime sentences.

Convicted and jailed-for-life terrorist Marwan Barghouti published a letter from his prison cell Tuesday to urge Arabs to join an “armed resistance.”

“Choosing global and armed resistance” was being “faithful to Arafat’s legacy, to his ideas, and his principles for which tens of thousands died as martyrs,” he stated.

His letter of incitement on Tuesday was meant to commemorate Yasser Arafat on the 10 anniversary of his death and included an accusation that his “assassination” was the result of “an official Israeli-American decision.”

Barghouti repeatedly has been at the top of Palestinian Authority popularity polls. He is serving five life terms for his involvement in suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks that killed and wounded hundreds of Israelis.

He often has been mentioned to be ןincluded in some of Israel’s infamous deals to free terrorists in return for a lone soldier or corpses of victims of Palestinian Authority terrorism.

Israel’s left-wing establishment media almost succeeded at least twice in campaigns to place Barghouti on the list of terrorists to be freed, but sanity prevailed among Cabinet ministers.

Ma’an reported, “Barghouti has said he never supported attacks on civilians inside Israel and in recent years has thrown his support behind peaceful resistance.”

That is par for the course for the Palestinian Authority”s voluminous rewritten history.

It seems that is no longer politically correct in the Palestinian Authority, which has been supported by most Western leader, most notably President Barack Obama and with the notable exception of Canada, to claim that Israel must expel nearly 600,000 Jews from half of Jerusalem and all of Judea and Samaria and turn over all of their property to the Palestinian Authority.

And don’t forget the tip. With the expulsion demand said and done, a new demand from the Arab world is that Israel must pay damages for having stepping foot over the Green Line.

A watchdog on anti-Semitism vowed legal action against a French municipality that named a street after Palestinian Authority terrorist Marwan Barghouti, serving five sentences of life in prison for involvement in attacks that killed dozens of Israelis.

The National Bureau for Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism, or BNVCA, on Wednesday prepared to ask an administrative court to void the move by Valenton, near Paris, BNVCA founder Sammy Ghozlan told JTA. BNVCA also will complain to police of incitement to commit a crime, he added.

“This celebration of a murderer is unacceptable,” Ghozlan said of the dedication in Venton last month of a street honoring Barghouti, who was sentenced by an Israeli court in 2004 to multiple life sentences for planning dozens of deadly terrorist attacks.

During the Sept. 15 inauguration of Marwan Barghouti Alley, Valenton Mayor Françoise Baud called Barghouti “the face of the unwavering resistance of the Palestinian people against the occupation, the crimes, the destruction, the apartheid and the colonization perpetrated by the Israeli government.”

During the same ceremony, Baud, a member of the French Communist Party, also inaugurated a square honoring Nelson Mandela, a former president of South Africa and an anti-apartheid activist.

“Referring to both men in the same breath is no distinction for Barghouti but a diminution of Mandela’s personality,” Shimon Samuels, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations, told JTA.

Ghozlan added that in light of the increase in anti-Semitic violence in France over Israel’s actions, “this is a signal that encourages more attacks on Jews.”

Barghouti was made an honorary citizen of Valenton five years ago. The municipality intends to sign a twinning agreement with the Balata refugee camp in the West Bank, Baud said in her speech.

The head of Palestinian Authority intelligence, Majid Faraj, is the Obama administration’s hand-picked favorite to succeed an ageing and ailing Mahmoud Abbas, according to several Middle East experts.

Abbas, now 80 and suffering from several medical ailments, chose Faraj in 2009 to head the General Intelligence Services, and he has since proved so much a favorite in the United States that he was secretly honored by the CIA last year for providing information that led to the arrest of terrorist Abu Anas Al-Libi, involved in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. embassy in Libya.

The CIA ostensibly honored him for “his efforts to open channels with Washington and with Hamas,” according to an article written for the Globes business news site by Dr. Moshe Elad, an IDF Reserve Colonel and college lecturer.

In truth, the reward was for Faraj’s helping arrest al-Libi, who had gathered information on American targets and carried a $5 million price tag on his head.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry immediately fell in love with Faraj, seeing him as an “officer and gentleman,” the perfect requisites for an American-ordained “peace partner” for Israel. The State Dept. is big on image and soft-sell and does not care about explosive content.

Faraj, in his 50s, is everything that the Palestinian Authority needs in its next round of trying to achieve the dream of shrinking Israel to the “Auschwitz borders” of 1949-1967 and asserting sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem, including the Western Wall and the Temple Mount.

The “obvious” successors’ to Abbas are fading out of the picture. Marwan Barghouti, serving five life prison sentences for involvement in suicide bombings and other terrorist attacks that maimed, killed and wounded hundreds of Israelis, is easily the most popular hero for Palestinian Authority Arabs. However, Israel is in no mood to free him, and his history as a terrorist, regardless of his “reform,” makes him less desirable for the American to pitch him as Israel’s greatest friend.

Other would-be successors are – or were – Mahmoud Dahlan, who was Abbas’ strong man in Gaza before Hamas’ revolution eight years ago. Dahlan has since been at virtual war with Abbas and has fled to the Gulf states.

Then there is Jibril Rajoub, former head of the Palestinian Authority security forces who was kicked upstairs to head the Palestinian Soccer League and has branded himself as irrelevant. Last year, he said that if the Palestinian Authority had a nuclear bomb, he would use it on Israel. Last week, he called the Israeli-Palestinian Authority youth soccer game, organized by the Peres Center for Peace, a “crime against humanity.”

Faraj, unlike the old guard “Tunis gang” in the Palestinian Authority, speaks perfect Hebrew and knows the Israeli system thoroughly, partly because he served served six years in several Israel jails. He was born in Bethlehem making him a model for the Palestinian Authority war against the “occupation,” unlike Abbas, who was born in Safed (Tsfat). Branding him a “refugee” from Dehaishe, next to Bethlehem, will win over the international media.

Faraj worked his way up in the ranks of Fatah. He proved his loyalty to Abbas since taking over as head of intelligence and has won the confidence of Abbas and of Israeli officials, so much so that his “black mark” among hawkish Palestinian Authority members is his cooperation with Israeli security authorities.

In 2008, when Khaled Mashaal said that the Abbas regime was illegitimate, he said, according to Elad, “We took care of every person in Hamas whose name was given to us… Out of 64 details on Hamas institutions, we took care of 40. Out of 330 bank accounts of Hamas people, 150 were closed.”

A Palestinian Arab polling organization found that the popularity of the genocidal terrorist organization Hamas rose amongst Palestinian Arabs following this summer’s war against Israel.

For those who were hoping that mounting deaths and destruction of their own people will have a moderating effect on the Arabs who live in the Middle East, start barking up a different tree. In fact, a recent poll shows that the vast majority of Arabs in the region (72 percent) actually prefer to have the PA run the territory for which they are responsible the way Hamas runs it in Gaza.

Rockets and violence over diplomacy and passivity is the Palestinian Arab ruling style of choice, as reflected in this latest poll.

During the 50-day summer of 2014 war, more than 2000 of their own people died and many apartment buildings and some entire neighborhoods were destroyed at least largely because the Hamas fighters shot from residential neighborhoods. Nonetheless, such death and destruction actually led to a dramatic increase in popularity for Hamas’s leadership and mode of governance.

In fact, fewer than five percent of Palestinian Arabs believed that Israel “won” the war. In contrast, nearly four out of five respondents believe Hamas was the winner in this summer’s war between Gaza and Israel.

The Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research learned through its poll that if elections were to be held now, well more than half of all Palestinian Arabs (61 percent) would vote for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh to lead their people, while only 32 percent would vote for Mahmoud Abbas, the current acting leader of the Palestinian Authority.

While a 61 percent approval rating sounds high, it is even more impressive – if that’s the right word – considering that it is a 20 percentage point surge since June, that is, before this summer’s war. And before the war, those who favored Abbas was 20 percentage points higher. The percentage of Arabs who live in what they call the “West Bank” who would vote for Hamas’s Haniyeh comes in at 66 percent, which is even higher than his standing in Gaza (53 percent).

In fact, this summer’s Gaza war increased Haniyeh’s popularity so much that if he ran against the perennially popular Fatah member Marwan Barghouti, Haniyeh would best Barghouti 49 percent to 45 percent. And, if there were a three-way political race, Abbas would draw down support from Barghouti, so that Haniyeh would prevail decisively with 48% of the vote. Barghouti would receive only 29 percent of the vote, and Abbas only 19% in a three-way vote.

If ever there were an example of perception dictating reality, the vast disparity in the raw numbers of dead on each side did nothing to dissuade the Palestinian Arabs from believing the Hamas war machine was effective in fighting Israel’s Defense Force (94 percent).

Hamas was viewed favorably both in terms of its offense against Israel, but also on defense. Nearly four-fifths of all Palestinian Arabs were satisfied with Hamas’s defense of Gazan civilians during the war (78 percent).

Perhaps the one poll result that will surprise nobody is that nearly nine out of ten Arabs in the region were satisfied with the Gazan leadership’s media and communication performance.

The poll was taken following the cessation of hostilities, and included 1,270 Palestinian Arabs from throughout the territories in which they live.

Marwan Barghouti is serving five life sentences in an Israeli prison for premeditated murder in attacks that killed five people, plus a few other crimes. The original prosecution charges accused him of perpetrating 37 attacks, running terrorist organizations, and recruiting and training terrorists.

The fact that Barghouti is also the most popular Palestinian Arab leader tells worlds about the Palestinian Arabs’ unreadiness for a credible peace agreement. Barghouti was a terrorist kingpin during the second intifada and unapologetically calls for a third intifada. He’s definitely not a Gandhi-type figure with peaceful instincts.

But that’s not the way the New York Times describes him in an article at the top of the foreign-news section in the April 8 edition (“Prisoner In Israel Is Linked To Talks – Popular Palestinian Serving Life Terms,” by Jerusalem bureau chief Jodi Rudoren, page A4).

Rudoren suggests that releasing Barghouti could be the key to revive moribund negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. To buttress her argument, she digs up Palestinian Arabs who view Barghouti as the Palestinian Arab parallel to Jonathan Pollard, the convicted U.S. spy for Israel who’s serving a life term.  A perfect trade, it would seem. – Barghouti for Pollard.  Never mind that the former is a serial murderer – a charge not affixed to the latter.

What it comes down to, according to Palestinian Arab fans of Barghouti that Rudoren is eager to quote, is simply:  “Why not? Pollard is very important to Israel and Barghouti is important to us.”

But it happens that this quid pro quo is more the product of a feverish Rudoren imagination than the key to revival of peace negotiations.  Still, Rudoren and the Times are determined to go the extra mile to humanize Barghouti.

Consequently, Times readers are told that Barghouti “has a roommate and a television with 10 channels.  He can read any newspaper published in Israel but cannot have a computer.”  If the Times had its way, this nice Palestinian Arab fellow would not be so deprived.

In similar solicitous vein, Rudoren adds that Barghouti’s wife sees him every other Tuesday for 45 minutes, through glass; the last time they touched was in 2006.”  Ah, those tough Israeli prison conditions.

And here comes the ultimate punishment of Barghouti: “Last month, Ms. Barghouti brought their only grandchild, Talia, who was born last summer, but the baby was barred at the last door before the visiting room because she is not a first-degree relative.”  Get out the hankies!

To give the appearance of evenhanded reporting, Rudoren lays out in detail the charges against Barghouti – but not until the second-before-last paragraph.  How many readers, one might ask, get that far?  Which is of course, why Rudoren arranges that Barghouti’s dark side takes second place to all those up-close-and-personal, heart-tugging descriptions of a thoroughly scrubbed clean arch-terrorist.

And no cameos, of course, of Israeli victims of Barghouti’s terrorist forays.  That would go counter to Rudoren’s agenda.

Originally published at The American Thinker.

Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership have concluded that the Obama Administration is prepared to do almost anything to show some kind of “victory” in the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinian demands therefore have continued to increase almost every day.

Palestinian Authority [PA] leader Mahmoud Abbas is now waiting to see what the U.S. Administration will offer him in return for refraining from pursuing his bid to join various international treaties and institutions.

In recent weeks, according to Palestinian officials, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has literally been “begging” Abbas to agree to the extension of the peace talks after the end of April.

Hours after Abbas signed the applications for joining a number of international bodies and treaties, he received an urgent phone call from Kerry asking him to refrain from further moves that could “derail” the peace process.

Abbas is convinced that it is only a matter of time before Kerry rushes back to the region in yet another desperate effort to “salvage the peace process.”

Last Wednesday night, Abbas and the PA leadership received the first sign that the U.S. Administration was nervous and confused following the PA’s surprise decision to join 15 international organizations and treaties.

Kerry’s envoy, Martin Indyk, invited Chief PLO negotiator Saeb Erekat and Israeli Justice Minister Tzipi Livni to an emergency meeting in Jerusalem to find ways of preventing the “collapse” of the peace talks in the wake of Abbas’s decision to apply for the memberships.

The meeting lasted for several hours and, according to Palestinian sources in Ramallah, Indyk and Livni “reprimanded” Erekat for surprising Israel and the U.S. Administration with the new decision.

Abbas dispatched Erekat to the meeting to see what the Americans and Israelis are prepared to offer him in return for suspending this bid.

So far, however, Abbas does not seem to be satisfied with what his emissary, Erekat, heard from Indyk and Livni. Abbas is therefore expected to step up pressure on the two parties in the coming days and weeks, if he can, in the hope of extracting as many concessions as possible.

Abbas and the Palestinian Authority leadership have concluded that the Obama Administration is prepared to do almost anything to show some kind of a “victory” in the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis. Palestinian demands have therefore continued to increase almost every day.

Realizing how desperate Kerry is to achieve an extension of the talks, Abbas decided that this was the right time to set new conditions, such as the release of jailed Fatah militia leader Marwan Barghouti and Ahmed Sa’adat, Secretary-General of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. Barghouti is in prison for his role in terrorist attacks against Israelis during the second intifada. Sa’adat is serving a lengthy prison term for his role in the assassination of Israel’s Tourism Minister Rehavam Ze’evi.

As Kerry increased his pressure on the Palestinians to agree to an extension, Abbas added two more conditions: the release of hundreds of Palestinian prisoners and a complete cessation of construction in settlements and east Jerusalem neighborhoods.

Abbas has also made it clear that his decision to join international organizations and treaties does not mean that he is interested in a “clash” with the U.S. Administration.

Abbas is right. Of course he does not want a “clash” with President Barack Obama and Kerry. Rather, Abbas wants the two men to continue begging him not to walk out of the peace process and turn their entire Middle East policy into another blunder. He wants them to exert pressure on the Israeli government to accept both his old and new demands.