Report: Rice Backs Freeing Barghouti
Full Text;
A Saudi Arabian newspaper has reported that American Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice asked Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to release convicted terrorist Marwan Barghouti. Barghouti is the founder of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the terrorist arm of the Fatah movement headed by Palestinian Authority (PA) president Mahmoud Abbas.
The Saudi newspaper Okaz reported Wednesday that Rice told Prime Minister Olmert that freeing Barghouti, who is widely popular among the Arab population, would help strengthen Abbas and weaken the Hamas terrorist organization, which controls the PA legislature.
Commentary;
The Israeli government elites, the Ehud Olmert’s omission of Pollard’s name in the context of his reading out the names of captives in his speech at the opening of Knesset this week is yet further proof of this fact. MB