Jailed Barghouti ... a Peace-nik?, Calls for Palestinian "Peaceful Resistance"

At The Wonk Room, Matt Duss brings attention to an interview by Maan News Agency with Marwan Barghouti, the imprisoned Palestinian leader currently serving five life sentences for orchestrating terror attacks in Israel.  As Duss points out, Barghouti claims that there is no Israeli partner:

I am saying this loudly: anyone who thinks that peace is possible with the current Israeli government and was not possible with the previous governments, is being delusional.

He also calls for a host of pre-conditions before starting negotiations with Israel:

I urge the Executive Committee of the PLO to insist that Israel commit to the principle of ending the occupation, withdraw to the 1967 borders, recognize Palestinians’ right to self-determination, establish an independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, recognize [UN] resolution 194, stop settlements, and release prisoners as a precondition to hold any negotiations with the Israeli government.

But more surprising is the recurring theme in his remarks calling for a "peaceful resistance" movement among Palestinians:

What is needed now is a popular movement of peaceful resistance to confront settlement, a movement that has the participation of all the leaders, factions, organizations, and the Palestinian Authority.

…

Is is possible to successfully confront Israel’s settlement project?

First, what is needed is a firm and consistent political stance on the basis we already discussed. Secondly, the PLO Executive Committee, with all of the factions, should set a plan and vision for a wide popular and peaceful movement against settlements. We need the Executive committee, the factions, and PLC members to turn up the heat on popular demonstrations.

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Prime Minister Salam Fayyad had presented his plan titled “Palestine: Ending the occupation, establishing the state. Have you read this document? What you think of it?

I read the document more than once. I think it’s a good plan. It makes  the argument that ending the occupation is a precondition to establishing the state. But the PLO and the factions should compliment this plan with a blueprint for peaceful, popular resistance.

It has long been rumored that Barghouti may be released in a prisoner swap for the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.  He continues to be popular among the Palestinians and has been active in prison, drafting the so-called Prisoner’s Document for Palestinian reconciliation and recently being elected to Fatah’s central committee.

But releasing Barghouti, who is attributed with orchestrating terror attacks in Israel during the second intifada, would be extremely painful for Israel. As Jo Ann Mort wrote in Foreign Policy in August:

In his years in prison alongside Hamas leaders, Barghouti won the respect of the Islamist movement. Today, his name is likely at the top of the list for a potential prisoner exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas has held captive for more than three years.

But the subject of Barghouti's potential release is bitterly divisive in Israel, due to his alleged role in the second intifada. Some members of the Israeli legislature, the Knesset, have called for the prisoner exchange, including former Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer. Others, such as Tzipi Livni, the leader of the opposition Kadima party, have insisted Barghouti -- convicted for five life terms -- should never walk free.

At the same time, there is a growing acknowledgement among Israelis and Palestinians that Barghouti's broad appeal and reformist streak offer the best prospects for peace. Politicians in Israel see him as the best hope for strengthening the nationalist camp against Hamas -- ironically, due to his close ties with the opposition party and thus his ability to influence them.

Writing in the Weekly Standard in April, Gershom Gorenberg wrote of the search for a Palestinian leader who could lead a successful nonviolent campaign.  In the piece, Gorenberg outlines what a profile of such a leader might look like:

What is lacking, Mustafa Abu Sway tells me, is a "charismatic leader," the figure who pulls crowds after him. (He is not nominating himself.) The great-man theory of history has been maligned, but he is right. Historical processes create opportunities, but it matters who seizes them. Segregation was ready to crack in 1955, but if Martin Luther King had previously accepted an academic position teaching theology rather than a pulpit in Montgomery, nonviolence might never have been part of the civil rights movement. King was a preacher and a preacher's son, an aristocrat of an intensely religious society. Taylor Branch, in his vast biography, Parting the Waters, notes that when King was a divinity student, "his peers so admired his preaching technique that they packed the chapel" when he gave the student sermon. The brilliance of the individual cannot be explained by the blind processes of history. Rather, it shapes them.

At the end of a search for a missing man, I can imagine him. Earlier in his life, he would have believed in armed struggle. He would have acted on that belief and served time in an Israeli jail--so that he fit the myth before he sought to change it and so that his own life embodies what he asks of his followers. Ideally, he would belong to a prominent clan--perhaps the Husseinis of Jerusalem or the al-Masris of Nablus. He would be committed to nonviolence as a moral principle and would say so rather than describing it only as an effective means. Without the commitment, sticking to the tactic is hard. And for a leader to speak with the passion that makes people follow, he needs to say what he really believes. He would be a gifted orator and organizer. Knowing that the audience for his public drama included Israelis, he would threaten their preconceptions by showing he could keep Palestinians from threatening their lives.

The first Israeli reaction to his acts of defiance could well be massive force. Yet if he stuck absolutely to nonviolent means, he could awaken a political storm in Israel. Today's radical Islamicists would attack him, but Islam itself could provide the language to move people. His greatest challenge would be to redefine what it means to be a Palestinian. In a time of despair, like the current time, that might be possible.

Is this the profile of Marwan Barghouti?  If he is released in a future Shalit deal, we may find out.