Gideon Ezra—a former chief of Israel’s powerful General Security Service, which deals with Palestinian terror—became yet another leftist to publicly support the release of Marwan Barghouti, the arch-terrorist leader of Tanzim imprisoned in Israeli for consecutive life terms.
A decade ago, Mubarak lamented in a Newsweek interview: what can poor Arafat do with such terrible people around him as Barghouti?
The Israeli left developed a rapport with Barghouti while he was in jail. Many other high-profile jailed terrorists rose to a similar cult-status among the Left, who were able to associate with them almost daily and were deeply impressed by the terrorists’ determination, which contrasted with their own nihilistic post-Zionism.
Three years ago, Barghouti laid out his vision for peace with Israel, which is no different from Hamas’s: 1967 borders, Jerusalem, and the return of the refugees. Israelis fail to recognize that Palestinian public figures are popular but powerless. Just as Arafat was a symbol of the Intifada but could not quench it, so Barghouti cannot push Palestinian terrorist factions to accept a peace settlement. Worse, unlike even Abbas, he is a lone man without significant institutional support, and his Tanzim group is only a marginal terrorist organization.
With the usual Arab gall, Fatah demanded that Israel release Barghouti “for the sake of the peace process”—that is, despite Fatah’s rejection of any sensible peace with Israel just days ago.
