Arab Barghouti (Jerusalem, 35) says that “at the end of the day” he does not think of Marwan Barghouti as a politician, nor as the Palestinian leader of the Second Intifada (2000–2005), who was sentenced by Israel to five life terms in a trial full of irregularities 24 years ago. He thinks of himself as the son who wants his father “to come home.”
Marwan Barghouti (Kobar, 66) is the only Palestinian leader who commands consensus, even among Hamas fundamentalists. That “unified leadership,” his son argues, is “the reason” he believes Israel refuses to release the man known as “the Palestinian Mandela” (Nelson Mandela himself drew parallels between their experiences).
Arab Barghouti spoke with EL PAÍS on June 3 in Madrid. Among other events, in the Spanish capital he met with representatives from all parliamentary groups in Congress except those from the conservative PP, far-right Vox, and pro-independence Junts per Catalunya, as part of the “Free Marwan” campaign to call for his father’s release.
Question. Like you, many Palestinians grew up with parents in prison. What does the imprisonment of Palestinians represent for Israel?
Answer. It is collective punishment and an instrument of the occupation used to silence, oppress, and de-legitimize the Palestinian people’s right to self-defense. Over the past 58 years, more than 800,000 Palestinians have been imprisoned, one-third of them under administrative detention [without charges or trial], which is unlawful under international law. It affects every Palestinian family. As my mother [lawyer Fadwa Barghouti] noted, after October 7, 2023 [the day of the Hamas attacks and the start of the Israeli offensive in Gaza], mass incarceration has become a continuation of the genocide.
Q. You have denounced several assaults on your father in prison. How is he now?
A. His lawyer saw him a few weeks ago and said he was assaulted again at the end of April and also on May 12. Those attacks continue because Israel knows what my father represents. We are facing a deranged prison system that has killed more than 100 Palestinian political prisoners [since October 7, 2023]. That shows how desperate they are, because they fear a man behind bars, whom they lock in a cell and prevent from receiving medical treatment or [sufficient] food. My father has lost more than 10 kilos and has been held in solitary confinement for more than two and a half years, but he remains positive and very strong mentally.
Q. When Israel’s national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, threatened your father on camera, you said that was the representation of the Palestinian struggle. Why?
A. Because there you had a bully, a fascist like Ben-Gvir, who tried to humiliate my father in front of the whole world just to show off. He is a convicted terrorist even in Israel. He is also a perfect reflection of what Israel is today. To me it makes no sense that world leaders do not speak out against Ben-Gvir and the horrific treatment he gives Palestinian political prisoners. That he is allowed to do whatever he wants demonstrates the state of the international community. My father, with his weakened body, represents the Palestinian people. When the Palestinian people starve, he starves; when a Palestinian is attacked, he is attacked. He is someone who embodies the Palestinian history and struggle.
Q. Israel has repeatedly refused to free him, most recently when Hamas demanded his release as part of the October ceasefire in Gaza.
A. My father supports coexistence and a political solution in Palestine. And that is why he remains in prison. In the past 15 years, Israel has released more than 800 Palestinians serving life sentences like his, in cases that, according to them, were more complicated than my father’s. Israel does not want peace with the Palestinians; it wants one of two options. The first is the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people, which occurs every day: in Gaza, where they already control more than 60% [of the territory] and where they have killed dozens, if not hundreds, of people; and in the West Bank, where settler terrorism has expelled 40,000 Palestinians. The second option is perpetual apartheid. They do not want a two-state solution or peace. That is why they refuse to release a unifying Palestinian leader who believes in international law, in coexistence and in peace, but who will never renounce the Palestinians’ right to achieve freedom, self-determination, and independence.
Q. How do you explain that Hamas, an Islamist faction, respects your father, who is a leader of the secular Fatah [the main PLO movement]?
A. My father was brave regarding the peace process, but also regarding the Palestinians’ right to defend themselves. He advocated for peace in the 1990s and met with Israelis in Tel Aviv, in Europe, in Palestine and elsewhere. He later understood that the Israelis had not committed to the Oslo Accords nor to the Palestinian people’s right to their own state. That was when he decided to tell the people what to do as a member of parliament during the Second Intifada. From then on, he became the face of that uprising. He is also a highly educated man who taught hundreds of Palestinian prisoners who, upon release, became ambassadors of his political vision and spread his message. Above all, he is a unifying figure.
Q. Does your father still see a two-state solution as possible?
A. My father understands that the Israelis are undermining that solution by building more and more illegal settlements and stealing more Palestinian land. But at the same time, he does not insist on the final form of the two-state solution. Our goal is freedom, dignity, and independence, whatever the ultimate shape of the solution may be.
Q. In 2015, Marwan Barghouti wrote that Israel used negotiations “to advance its colonial project.” Is that prophecy coming true?
A. My father understands what we’re up against, especially now that we’re dealing with an Israeli government as terrible as any we’ve ever seen before. However, the idea that peace in the Middle East can be achieved without addressing the Palestinian question is a myth. There will be no peace or stability in the Middle East without an answer to the Palestinian question. And I hope the international community understands that the only way to confront the Israeli regime, its apartheid, occupation, and war crimes is by sanctioning and isolating it.
Q. That is not the trend the EU is showing by maintaining its association agreement with Israel.
A. Some EU leaders are complicit in the shedding of our blood and the killing of our children, as are leaders of other countries, but we must focus on the future because we owe it to Palestinian children. I am here to build bridges with the EU, with all countries. Even with the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States.
Q. What role does the Palestinian Authority (PA) play in the current political paralysis?
A. I belong to a generation that is very critical of the PA for its inability to protect the Palestinian people, but what I blame them most for is not holding elections when political renewal is essential in Palestine. Right now we welcome all the measures President Mahmoud Abbas is taking, such as the local elections two months ago or the internal Fatah central committee vote a month ago, in which my father was re-elected with the highest number of votes among the candidates. We hope elections are held for the PLO’s Palestinian National Council, which would act as the parliament we do not have, making the whole system dysfunctional. We also trust that general elections will take place, which are essential for the Palestinian Authority to recover its legitimacy and indispensable to achieve political unity between Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
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