Periodically, the Palestinian Authority (PA) makes noises about having elections. No doubt, Abu Mazen wants to impress the new Biden administration and has promised to give his people their first chance to throw him out of office in 16 years. As whenever there is an election in the PA, the name Marwan Barghouti comes up. The fact that he is serving five life sentences in an Israeli jail means nothing, as everyone knows that Israel would let him go under the right conditions, just as it let out over 1,000 Palestinian terrorists in the Gilad Schalit deal.
In a recent op-ed, I quoted the military indictment of Akrim Aweis, a senior Palestinian intelligence officer who sent a suicide bomber to downtown Jerusalem on 21 March, 2002. I will take the liberty of going back to the same source and quote once again:
17. On 20 March 2002, Nasser Shawish met in Ramallah with the head of the “Tanzim” of Fatah in the region, Marwan Barghouti. Nasser Shawish passed along to Marwan Barghouti that the accused was ready to send a suicide bomber for the purpose of performing a suicide attack inside the State of Israel. Marwan Barghouti asked to know if the accused and Nasser Shawish needed anything for the purpose of carrying out the planned attack. Though he was answered in the negative, Marwan Barghouti gave Shawish the amount of 600 US dollars.
Here we again have a senior Palestinian Authority official directly associated with an attack in which three Israelis were killed and dozens were injured, including two American citizens. Will the US look the other way and let Barghouti run and win? History would say yes.
In the years prior to the Schalit deal, I lobbied US officials not to let Palestinians with American blood on their hands be part of any proposed prisoner swap. I was in touch with the incoming Obama administration and officials from the Department of Justice (DoJ). One DoJ official told me after the swap in 2011 had occurred that he had actually seen the list of such prisoners ready for delivery to Israeli official but was told that people in the Holder DoJ decided not to pass that list along to Israel. And sure enough, eighteen terrorists with American blood on their hands were released for Schalit. The clueless FBI could not figure out who they were because of missing identity numbers and/or differences in English spelling of names. So, one of our lawyers made the courtesy of sending them the list: name, which attack, which Americans were harmed, sentence. The FBI could not have figured this out on their own.
The US under multiple administrations has been disappointed with Abbas and his intransigence. The new administration may well go instead for the “young guy” who has a trail of blood following him. Our lawyers in Sokolow v PLO, in translating mountains of documents, revealed that Barghouti’s lieutenants consistently said that if “peace negotiations” were going well for the Palestinians, they were to lay low; if Israel dug in its heels, then it was time to release the bombers and drive-by shooters. Having Barghouti run the PA will not bring peace, only a return to the Arafat-style policies of violence or give us what we want. The US will figure that a new dance partner could not be worse, but they will be wrong. Abbas has accomplished little but no one has suggested that he ran terror strategy the way Arafat did.
Many years ago, I attended a talk in Jerusalem given by Anatoli Sharansky to a group of Texas Jewish Republicans. He mentioned that he had once brought a group of Palestinian businessmen to Bill Clinton and told the latter that these people represented the future leadership of the Palestinian people. Clinton told Sharansky that it’s Arafat, and Arafat and only Arafat. There was no way to go around him and all business had to be done through him and via his selected representatives only. Having strongman Barghouti running the PA will not bring the Palestinians or the region any closer to peace. He is revered like Mandela but has never apologized for or renounced his previous terror activities or suggested that terror is off-limits in the future. He is a one-hit wonder: terror or else. He is not a statesman, in spite of however many European parliamentarians, Israeli Knesset members and international reporters swoon over his very being.
The Palestinians need leaders who want them to have a better future and will not use terror to achieve it. The US and the rest of the “quartet” are too timid to tell the Palestinians this important lesson. So violent terrorists from Hamas and Fatah will run against each other and against someone who is twelve years beyond the end of his term for the presidency of the Palestinian Authority. If the US and other peace partners want to avoid such a situation, they should make their voices heard now: no one with a terrorist past will be recognized as president of the Palestinian Authority. Then the Palestinian people can decide if they want a martyr generator as their president or someone who can negotiate a better future for them.