Spin Doctors Spinning Barghouti Release – Israel and The Sin of Expulsion

Report: Media Preparing Ground For Barghouti Release, by Ezra HaLevi (Israel National News)

“Although Israel’s media routinely refers to those convicted of rape as rapists (“The rapist Benny Sela escaped from police custody”) and murder as murderers (“The murderer Yigal Amir applied for the right to have a conjugal visit from his wife”), Barghouti is never referred to as a murderer on either Kol Israel government radio or Army Radio.”

For previous reports related to Marwan Barghouti, click here.

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Trial balloon reports and leaks indicating that arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti may be released as part of a deal to win the freedom of IDF Cpl. Gilad Shalit have prompted an investigative reporter to examine Barghouti’s crimes and punishment.

Barghouti, who headed Fatah’s Tanzim terror group and founded the Al-Aksa Brigades has been presented in Israel’s state-run media as somewhat of a moderate – credited with the one-sided cease-fire Israel accepted with Hamas.

“For some journalists, Barghouti is a kind of Palestinian equivalent of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela,” investigative journalist Ron Farhi of Omedia writes. “By adopting this imagery, the media supports claims by the Palestinians and Arab Knesset members, that the trial of the West Bank Tanzim leader was a political trial. The fact is that a man guilty of murder has not been turned into a pariah.”

Media Refuses to Call Him ‘Murderer’
Although Israel’s media routinely refers to those convicted of rape as rapists (“The rapist Benny Sela escaped from police custody”) and murder as murderers (“The murderer Yigal Amir applied for the right to have a conjugal visit from his wife”), Barghouti is never referred to as a murderer on either Kol Israel government radio or Army Radio.

“He is most often described as ‘incarcerated in Israel’,” Farhi says. “This could lead to the mistaken perception that Barghouti is not a ‘prisoner with blood on his hands.’”

Convicted of Murder
Barghouti was captured during the April, 2002 Operation Defensive Shield and put on trial in an Israeli civil court. He headed the Tanzim military wing of Fatah, which also operated under the name Al-Aksa Martyrs Brigade. He was convicted on May 20, 2004 of the murder of five Israeli who died in three terror attacks:

* The attack at the Sea Food Market in Tel Aviv (March 5, 2002), in which Druze police Sgt.-Maj. Salim Barchat, 33; Yosef Habi, 52; and Eli Dahan, 53 were murdered. “Barghouti authorized the terror attack himself,” the verdict read.

* The attack at the gas station near the community Givat Ze’ev, northwest of Jerusalem (January 15, 2002), in which Yoel Chen was murdered. “The attack was carried out on the explicit order of the accused. Barghouti admitted his responsibility for this attack,” read the verdict.

* The shooting attack on the Maaleh Adumim road (June 12, 2001) in which Greek monk Tsibouktsakis Germanus was murdered. “Barghouti referred [the terrorist] to a man who would guide him and supply him with a weapon for the attack. He also ordered him not to commit a suicide bombing, but rather a drive-by shooting,” read the verdict.

* A failed suicide car bombing that ended in a premature detonation near Jerusalem’s Malcha Mall.

He was accused of 21 more counts of murder in 33 other attacks Click here for , but the court ruled there was not enough evidence for further convictions. “There was insufficient evidence to tie the accused personally and directly to the other terror attacks in the indictment,” Judges Sarah Sirotah, Avraham Tal and Amiram Binyamini wrote. “[However], there is real concern that Barghouti knew much more than he revealed during the investigation, but we cannot be sufficiently sure.”

The full indictment is available on Israel’s Foreign Ministry web site. [Search button on site inoperative at 3 PM, 13 Apr., 2007 MB]

On June 6, 2004, Barghouti was sentenced to five life sentences for the five murders and 40 years imprisonment for the attempted murder.

MK [Labor] Ayalon: Barghouti Does Not Have ‘Blood on His Hands’

Release Movement Born Immediately

Immediately after his conviction, Israeli-Arab MKs began to champion Barghouti’s cause, promising that he would be the next Yassir Arafat and would one day lead his people and be the address for Israeli negotiators. “Barghouti will be released and those who incarcerated him will have to negotiate with him,” MK Ahmed Tibi said. “Because he is the leader of the Palestinian people.”

Farhi says Barghouti had close ties with most of the leading figures on the Israeli left as well. “[Meretz MK] Zehava Gal-On once marched literally hand in hand with him, in a demonstration in Ramallah,” Farhi said. “Despite his responsibility for the murder of Israelis, they still view him as a legitimate Palestinian leader. MK Yossi Beilin called for his release a year ago. He has not changed his mind. According to Beilin, who forgives Barghouti, the latter was in ‘a competition with Hamas and therefore made a terrible mistake.’ Despite the murders for which he was convicted, Beilin considers Barghouti a moderating factor in Palestinian society.”

Oslo Accords architect Ron Pundak, the deputy director of the Peres Center for Peace, went even further. “Two years ago, Pundak sent Barghouti a touching letter in which he continues to define him as a man of peace,” Farhi recall, quoting the letter: “From my acquaintance with you, I am certain that the bars and chains cannot weaken your belief in peace. It is possible that you would be encouraged by the fact that there are many Israelis who believe in you as a true partner for peace. Your arrest is a sad and terrible mistake. I have no recourse but to grieve that the Israeli political and security leadership have detained you.”

It has recently been revealed that even Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has negotiated with Barghouti though messages exchanged by MK Chaim Oron (Meretz). Barghouti is credited with drafting the Prisoners’ Document peace plan, incorporated in the Saudi Peace Plan confirmed at the recent Riyadh summit, as well as the Mecca agreement aimed at bringing together the warring Fatah and Hamas factions in the PA government.

Others who have joined the chorus to free Barghouti in exchange for Cpl. Gilad Shalit are former Minister of Public Security MK Gideon Ezra (Kadima), Housing and Construction Minister Meir Sheetrit (Kadima) Haaretz Arab-Affairs Correspondent Danny Rubinstein, Haaretz Senior Correspondent Ben Caspit (who called Barghouti a “close friend,” according to Farhi) and all prospective presidential candidates (who have refused to say they would not pardon Barghouti). Former Meretz head Yossi Sarid says Barghouti should be released unconditionally, explaining that the Tanzim head had simply “lost control after the targeted killing of his friend, Ra’ad Carmi.”

Personal Secretary While in Prison
Fellow investigative journalist Yoav Yitzchak of News First Class revealed Barghouti’s special treatment at the hand of Israel’s Prison Service in an expose last year. Barghouti has what Yitzchak referred to as a “personal secretary” – a Chief Superintendent in the Prisons Service who spends most of her time dealing with Barghouti’s numerous appointments with politicians, PA leaders and left-wing and Arab Knesset Members.

“But Farhi warns that Barghouti could be the most dangerous PA leader yet. ‘Barghouti, who knows Israel well, who knows her weak points, and exploits the Israeli media and Israeli Left, is Israel’s most dangerous and cunning enemy because Barghouti is far more cunning than Arafat, and a master at word games and duplicity.’”

Moderate How?
“Clearly, from a moral perspective, the reasons for releasing a murderer would need to be extremely valid and exceptional,” Farhi writes. “Those who fight for Barghouti’s release fall back on the claim that their old friend from the Oslo Agreements would be a suitable peace partner for Israel. They believe he could constitute some kind of alternative to the Hamas government, which refuses to acknowledge Israel, even as lip-service.”

Barghouti’s moderate image has never come from his rejection of terrorism though, but rather his open advocacy of focusing attacks on IDF soldiers and Jewish residents of Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Barghouti’s claims to stick to the murder of “soldiers and settlers,” while appealing to some on the left as an improvement over Hamas, have their numerous exceptions. At the beginning of the Oslo War in 2000, Barghouti explained an attack by one of his men in Tel Aviv as a “natural reaction to the acts of slaughter by the Sharon government gang. If Sharon does not respect the Palestinian Authority’s territory, why should the Palestinians respect Israeli territories such as Tel-Aviv?”

In an interview with the PA’s al-Ayyam newspaper six months ago, Barghouti said Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza was a result of “the Resistance, and the courageous stand of our great people…I clearly say that any agreement or plan, whatever its source, that does not end the occupation and dismantle the settlements up to the ’67 borders, including Jerusalem will force the Palestinians to continue the resistance.”

And yet, laments Farhi, Israel’s media continues to prepare the ground for Barghouti’s release, bringing up his release as every opportunity and featuring him and his family in humanizing feature stories.

Particularly noteworthy was a full show on Israel’s state-regulated Channel 2 television’s Ulpan Shishi (Friday Studio) program. Host Yoram Binur interviewed Barghouti’s brother, mother and wife, “not asking a single question regarding the murders their beloved relative is responsible for,” Farhi says. “Binur’s reporting emphasized Barghouti’s ‘humane and enlightened side’ as a feminist and fighter for the rights of Palestinian women.”

“Given the difficulties with Hamas, Israel might choose to gamble on Barghouti as Arafat number two, as some sort of local substitute for the current reign of terror,” Farhi warns. “Binur’s report could easily fit into a campaign for the release of Barghouti, the murderer of five Israelis – among them a woman, murdered with full equality, out of sheer feminism, no doubt.”

But Farhi warns that Barghouti could be the most dangerous PA leader yet. “Barghouti, who knows Israel well, who knows her weak points, and exploits the Israeli media and Israeli Left, is Israel’s most dangerous and cunning enemy because Barghouti is far more cunning than Arafat, and a master at word games and duplicity.”

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