The Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti is planning to stand for election for the presidency from his Israeli prison cell, according to his supporters.
"If there is an election, he intends to run like every other Palestinian leader and he would stand a good chance since he is so popular," the close supporter said.
Barghouti, a street-fighter turned politician who gained fame as one of the main leaders of the Palestinian uprising on the West Bank, came out well ahead of any of his rivals in a respected opinion poll in September.
If he won, it would represent a powerful propaganda coup: the elected leader of the Palestinians kept in an Israeli jail. His supporters hope that such a victory could act as a lever for his release but an Israeli government official said this week it will not free a man serving five life sentences for organizing attacks on Israelis.
Barghouti, 45, was one of the leaders in the West Bank of Fatah, the secular fighting and political organization and the dominant force in Palestinian life, during the first 18 months of the uprising until arrested by the Israelis when they occupied Ramallah in 2002. He is held in isolation in Beersheva.
His wife, Fadwa, said: "He spends 23 hours in his cell and one hour in a covered courtyard with his legs and hands chained. His health was bad before he went to prison and is worse now."
His only contact with the world is speaking through a peephole to his lawyer, who takes messages to the family and political contacts.
"I have not seen him for two and a half years," Fadwa, a lawyer who lives in Ramallah, said.
Barghouti, born and raised in the West Bank, is one of a new, younger generation of Palestinian politicians. His popularity comes mainly from his visible presence in the streets during fighting with the Israelis. That popularity increased with his defiance in the Israeli court trying him in Tel Aviv, which he refused to recognize.
According to a poll conducted by Bir Zeit university in September, Arafat received 46 percent support, with Barghouti on 12 percent, and two leaders of the Islamist organization Hamas, Mahmoud Azzahar and Ismaiel Haneyah, on 9 percent and 8 percent. The prime minister, Ahmed Qureia, and Mahmoud Abbas, the new chairman of the Palestine Liberation Organization, hovered around 1 percent. With Arafat removed from the poll and the question restricted to Barghouti and two other leaders, Barghouti scored 51 percent, in both the West Bank and Gaza.
The Israeli government wants Qureia or Abbas to succeed Arafat. An Israeli government official said that if the Palestinians voted overwhelmingly for Barghouti, Israel would take it as a sign they were not yet ready for peace.
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
HYPOCRISY? The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday asked whether Biden was talking about China or the US when he used the word ‘xenophobic’ US President Joe Biden on Wednesday called for a hike in steel tariffs on China, accusing Beijing of cheating as he spoke at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Biden accused China of xenophobia, too, in a speech to union members in Pittsburgh. “They’re not competing, they’re cheating. They’re cheating and we’ve seen the damage here in America,” Biden said. Chinese steel companies “don’t need to worry about making a profit because the Chinese government is subsidizing them so heavily,” he said. Biden said he had called for the US Trade Representative to triple the tariff rates for Chinese steel and aluminum if Beijing was
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese