Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian political leader and a former member of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee, says Israel’s “gangster style assassination and extrajudicial executions” are designed to “inflame the whole region”, reports Al Jazeera.

The killings of the Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut, Lebanon, were carried out to “sabotage any chances” of a ceasefire deal in Gaza and regional de-escalation, Ashrawi said.

Haniyeh was a chief Hamas negotiator for a ceasefire in Israel’s genocidal war and had built up formidable diplomatic credentials across the region.

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While Israel and the United States regarded him as a “terrorist”, thousands mourned him across the Middle East yesterday, demonstrated huge and widespread support and respect.

“These are attacks not just on the capitals of sovereign states but also on significant leaders to ensure total provocation [and] destabilisation,” Ashrawi wrote on social media.

“Israel is a rogue state that represents a real [and] present danger globally,” she said.

‘Maddening and shameful’
Marking the 300th day of Israel’s war on Gaza yesterday, Palestinian-American scholar Noura Erakat said it was “maddening and shameful” that the world had not been able to stop one of the “grossest, most blatant colonial genocides”.

In a post on social media, Erakat said Israel’s genocide in Gaza had featured the use of advanced weapons as well as the spread of disease, “poisoning of the earth” as well as sexual assault and torture, reports Al Jazeera.

Israel’s genocide must be remembered for what it is, Erakat said, adding “we cannot afford to lose the next battle over narrative”.

“A blight on all humanity, to ascribe shame to all who let it happen [and] glory to those who fought so that the future indeed ensures: never again,” she said.

Day 300. Its maddening and shameful we have not been able to end one of the grossest, most blatant colonial #genocides feat disease, poisoning of the earth, sexual assualt, torture, & advanced weapons. This will end & we cannot afford to lose the next battle over narrative (1/2)

— Noura Erakat (@4noura) August 1, 2024

According to an analysis of data from the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project (ACLED), Israel is responsible for 17,081 incidents of air/drone raids, shelling/missile attacks, remote explosives and property destruction in eight countries since October 7, including the occupied Palestinian territory, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Jordan, Iran and Iraq.

A majority of these attacks were on the Palestinian territory, specifically the Gaza Strip, with 10,389 incidents accounting for more than 60 percent of the total offensives.

There were at least 6,544 incidents of Israeli attacks on Lebanon (38 percent), followed by Syria with 144 such incidents recorded.

Haniyeh funeral final ceremonies in Qatar.           Video: Al Jazeera

Released 15 Palestinian prisoners tortured
Israeli forces have released 15 Palestinian prisoners into Gaza. They were dropped off at a military checkpoint near Deir el-Balah in central Gaza. Many spoke of abuse and torture while detained.

Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians during the war in Gaza and stands accused of numerous cases of torture, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights says in a new report.

The 23-page report, released on Wednesday, noted allegations of widespread abuse of prisoners being held incommunicado in arbitrary, prolonged detention.

It was published during a tense standoff in Israel as far-right politicians and demonstrators opposed an investigation into alleged sexual abuse of Palestinian detainees by Israeli soldiers.

The death toll in the genocidal war at the 300 day mark has topped 40,000 Palestinians, including more than 16,000 children.

He is the most popular Palestinian leader alive today — and yet few people in the West even know his name. Absolutely no one in Gaza or the West Bank does not know him.

That difference speaks volumes about who dominates the media narrative that we are spoon-fed every day.

Marwan Barghouti — known to many as “the Palestinian Mandela” — has spent more time in captivity than Nelson Mandela did.

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Barghouti, the “terrorist”, rotting in jail. Barghouti, the indomitable leader who has not given up on peace. Barghouti, loved by ordinary people as “a man of the street”. Barghouti, supporter of the Oslo Accords.

Barghouti, the 15-year-old youth leader standing beside Yasser Arafat. Barghouti, once a member of Parliament and Fatah secretary-general. Barghouti, leader of Tanzim, a PLO military wing, choosing militancy after the betrayal of the Oslo promise by the Americans and Israelis became fully clear.

Barghouti, a leader of the intifada that restored hope to a broken people. Barghouti, the scholar and thinker. Barghouti, the political strategist and unifier.

Marwan Barghouti is also that most powerful thing: a living symbol of an oppressed people. Why do so few in the West even know his name? He declared:

“Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation.

“Nobody should forget that the Palestinian people negotiated for 10 years and accepted difficult and humiliating agreements, and in the end didn’t get anything except authority over the people, and no authority over land, or sovereignty.”

Prison a defining part of Palestinian national consciousness
Researcher-writer Emad Moussa says imprisonment has become a defining part of the Palestinian national consciousness. In a 2021 article for The New Arab, he says that Marwan Barghouti proves you can imprison the Palestinians but not their struggle.

It’s not hard to understand why imprisonment is a central part of Palestinian consciousness.

Norman Finkelstein describes October 7 as more like a slave revolt than a terrorist attack.

Fellow Jewish scholar Masha Gessen likens Gaza to a Nazi-era Jewish ghetto.

In fact, all 7.5 million Palestinians are prisoners of the Zionist state. They are all prisoners of the history imposed on them by the powerful white nations of the West. Between 1967 and 2015 over 850,000 Palestinians had been detained by the Israelis.

According to the Israeli human rights group B’tselem more than 8000 Palestinians are held by the Israelis. Many are held in secret Israeli Defence Force (IDF) facilities and there have been verified cases of torture, sexual abuse and limb amputations due to prolonged shackling.

Many children are also held in grim captivity.

Denies the charges
Barghouti, returned to jail in 2002, and was convicted by an Israeli court on five counts of murder in 2004. He denies the charges and does not recognise the court.

Like many who see all non-violent avenues to peace shut off, Barghouti watched the Israelis relentlessly steal more and more Palestinian land and Palestinian homes, build hundreds of illegal settlements in defiance of international law and strangle his people with draconian controls — all while America and the powerful Western countries turned a blind eye.

“How would you feel if on every hill in territory that belongs to you a new settlement would spring up? I reached a simple conclusion. You, Israel, don’t want to end the occupation and you don’t want to stop the settlements — so the only way to convince you is by force.”

Lawyer and activist Fadwa Barghouti, Marwan’s wife, says: “Marwan’s goal has always been ending the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian Territories.

“Marwan Barghouti believes in politics. He’s a political and national leader loved by his people.

“He fought for peace with bravery and spent time on the Palestinian street advocating for peace. But he also believes in international law, which gives the occupied people the right to fight for their independence and freedom.”

Israeli journalist Gideon Levy at Haaretz agrees: “Marwan was not born to kill . . .  because he is not a violent person, but Israel pushed him and the entire Palestinian people.”

‘The ultimate leader’
Alon Liel, formerly Israel’s most senior diplomat, proposed freeing Barghouti because he is “the ultimate leader of the Palestinian people,” and “he is the only one who can extricate us from the quagmire we are in.”

He is not alone in this view. Jerome Karabel, professor of sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, details Netanyahu’s support for Hamas (for example, facilitating money via Qatar to Hamas) as a way to neutralise the threat posed by pro-peace, pro-two-state figures like Barghouti to the Zionists’ own single Jewish supremacist state solution.

“In this context, the popular and charismatic Barghouti has posed a unique threat to Israel and its persistent claim that it had no plausible interlocutor with whom to negotiate,” Karabel says.

Was Barghouti involved in terror attacks? Quite possibly.

He rejects such a label: “My crime is not “terrorism” — a term apparently only used to describe the deaths of Israeli civilians but never the deaths of Palestinians. My crime is that I insist on my freedom, freedom for my children, freedom for the entire Palestinian people.

“And if indeed that is a crime, I proudly plead guilty.”

The standard he is held to — five life sentences — bears no comparison with the impunity that Israelis enjoy — settlers who kill Palestinians are often rewarded with stolen land, through to political leaders greenlighting mass killings, even genocide, with the support of the US and the white Western countries.

Abandon the myth
“Israelis must abandon the myth that it is possible to have peace and occupation at the same time; that peaceful coexistence is possible between slave and master.

“The lack of Israeli security is born of the lack of Palestinian freedom. Israel will have security only after the end of occupation, not before.”

Beaten and abused in captivity, now being shunted from prison to prison and held in solitary confinement, Barghouti’s name only grows in stature as the US-Israeli violence against his people becomes clearer and clearer to a hitherto uncaring world.

According to a March 2024 poll conducted by the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, “In presidential elections against current president Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas’ leader Ismail Haniyeh, Barghouti wins the majority of those participating in the elections.”

It is the strange fate of the Palestinian people that most of their leaders — those that haven’t already been murdered — are either in Israeli jails, hiding from Israeli death squads or living in exile.

One of the most incredible — and for Westerners virtually unknown — political moments in the Israel-Palestinian conflict was the creation of The Prisoners’ Document in 2006 – a break-through in negotiations, led by Barghouti, between the fractious factions that divide the Palestinian polity.

In 18 points, the document calls for the unification of Palestinian factions and a revival of the PLO as the representative organisation of Palestine. It calls for the withdrawal of Israeli forces to the 1967 borders, the right of return, and the release of prisoners.

Freedom fighter and the options
“The Palestinian Mandela” is a useful shorthand and there is some merit to the comparison. Nelson Mandela visited Gaza in 1999 and raised his voice to condemn racist, apartheid Israel.

The freedom fighter who was jailed for terrorism in his own country made clear what options lay before the Palestinian people. He told his audience, which included Yasser Arafat:

“Choose peace rather than confrontation, except in cases where we cannot move forward. Then, if the only alternative is violence, we will use violence.”

“I was called a terrorist yesterday,” Mandela once said, “but when I came out of jail, many people embraced me, including my enemies, and that is what I normally tell other people who say those who are struggling for liberation in their country are terrorists.”

Barghouti said: “Once Israel and the rest of the world understand this fundamental truth, the way forward becomes clear: End the occupation, allow the Palestinians to live in freedom and let the independent and equal neighbours of Israel and Palestine negotiate a peaceful future with close economic and cultural ties.”

The Mandela comparison has its limits. Ahmed Abu Artema, one of the organisers of the Great Marches of Return in 2018 and 2019 in which thousands of peaceful Palestinian protesters were shot and hundreds killed by Israeli snipers, replied when asked, ‘Where is the Palestinian Mandela?’: “The simple answer to that is that the Israelis have killed many Mandelas.”

Marwa Fatafta, a policy director at Access Now also dismisses the need for a Palestinian Mandela: “I don’t subscribe to the mythology. I don’t think Palestinians need a ‘saviour’ or one man to run the show. This Mandela idea dismisses the fact that Israel has one goal and one goal only: to establish an ethno-nationalist Jewish state — and that stands in complete contradiction with the idea of co-existence, peace and justice.

Building from ground up
“What we need on the Palestinian side is to build a movement from the ground up,” Fatafta said in 2022.

That said, Barghouti has an immense standing in the Palestinian community and, in a slightly kinder, saner world, could play a significant role.

In the racist narrative of Israel and the West, the only hostages are those held by Hamas. It’s time to free the Palestinian hostages, starting with Marwan Barghouti — the longest-suffering of thousands of hostages. All of the hostages should be freed — including the remaining 100 held by Hamas.

To riff on The Specials 1984 song ‘Free Nelson Mandela’:

“27 years in captivity

“His body abused but his mind is still free

“Are you so blind that you cannot see?

“Free Marwan Barghouti, I’m begging you”

Republished from Eugene Doyle’s website Solidarity with permission.

For two months now, the United States and other Western countries backing Israel have been talking about “the day after” in Gaza. They have rejected Israeli assertions that the Israeli army will remain in control of the Strip and pointed to the Palestinian Authority (PA) as their preferred political actor to take over governance once the war is over.

In so doing, the US and its allies have paid little regard to what the Palestinian people want. The current leadership of the PA lost the last democratic elections held in the occupied Palestinian territory in 2006 to Hamas and since then, it has steadily lost popularity.

In a recent public opinion poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research (PSR), some 90 percent of respondents were in favour of the resignation of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, and 60 percent called for the dismantling of the PA itself.

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Washington is undoubtedly aware of the low public trust in the PA, but there is a reason why it insists on supporting its takeover of Gaza: its leadership has been a reliable partner for decades in maintaining a status quo in the interests of Israel.

The US would like that arrangement to continue, so its backing for the PA may be accompanied by an attempt to revamp it in order to solve its legitimacy problem. But even if this effort succeeds, it is unlikely the new iteration of the PA would be sustainable.

A reliable partner
Perhaps one of the main factors that has convinced the US that the PA is a “good choice” for post-war governance in Gaza is its anti-Hamas stance and willingness to conduct security coordination with Israel.

Since the Israel’s war on Gaza began on October 7, the PA and its leadership have not issued an official statement offering explicit political support for the Palestinian resistance. Their rhetoric has predominantly focused on condemning and disapproving of attacks on civilians on both sides, while also rejecting the expulsion of Palestinians from their homeland.

In a political address on the ninth day of the war, Abbas criticised Hamas, asserting that their actions did not represent the Palestinian people. He emphasised that the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people and underscored the importance of peaceful resistance as the only legitimate means to oppose Israeli occupation.

This statement was later retracted by his office.

In December, Hussein al-Sheikh, a PA official and secretary-general of the executive committee of the PLO, also criticised Hamas in an interview with Reuters. He suggested its armed resistance “method and approach” has failed and led to many casualties among the civilian population.

The stance of the PA is consistent with its own narrow political and economic interests which have come at the expense of the Palestinian national cause. It has systematically and brutally stamped out any opposition and any support for other factions, including Hamas, in order to maintain its rule over West Bank cities while Israel continues with its brutal occupation and dispossession of the Palestinian people.

In Israel’s war on Gaza in 2008–2009, the PA leadership hoped to regain administrative control of Gaza with assistance from Israel. During that conflict, the PA prohibited any activities in the West Bank in support of Gaza and threatened to arrest participants.

I, myself, faced harassment and the threat of arrest for attempting to join a demonstration against the war. Similar positions were adopted by the PA, albeit with less aggressive measures, in subsequent Israeli assaults on Gaza, as its leadership came to recognise that Hamas was unlikely to relinquish its control over the Strip.

Since October 7, the PA has taken a bolder stance, marked by more aggressive actions. Its security forces have suppressed demonstrations and marches held in support of Gaza, resorting to shooting live ammunition at participants. Additionally, the PA has recently detained individuals expressing support for the Palestinian resistance.

While cracking down on Palestinian protests, the PA has done nothing to protect its people from attacks by Israeli settlers on Palestinian communities, which have resulted in deaths, injuries and the displacement of hundreds of people in the occupied West Bank.

Additionally, the Israeli army has intensified its raids in the PA-administered areas, leading to the arrest of thousands and the killing of hundreds of Palestinians, with no reaction from the PA.

The PA’s inability to offer basic protection has added to the deterioration of its legitimacy among Palestinians. Furthermore, by taking a stance against the Palestinian resistance and aligning itself with Israel and the US, the PA is only further undermining its own legitimacy.

Palestine Authority – PA 1.0
Washington is aware of the growing unpopularity of the PA and its leadership among Palestinians but it is not giving up on it because it seems to believe that that can be fixed. That is because the US has tried to revamp the authority before as it has always faced problems with legitimacy due to the way it was set up.

As a governing institution, the PA was established to bring an end to the first Intifada.

Conceived under the interim peace agreements in Oslo, it was envisioned as an administrative body to oversee civil affairs for Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip and certain parts of the West Bank, excluding occupied East Jerusalem.

It effectively took on a role as an Israeli security contractor in exchange for certain benefits related to administering Palestinian population centres. The PA faithfully fulfilled its mandate, carrying out routine arrests and surveillance of Palestinian individuals, whether they were involved in actions against Israel or were activists opposing its corrupt practices.

Thus, Israel strategically benefitted from the establishment of the PA, but the same cannot be said for the Palestinian people, as they continued to experience the ravages of a military occupation.

Expected independent state
“Despite this, the PA under Yasser Arafat — or what we can call PA 1.0 — leveraged patronage and corruption to maintain some level of support. Notably, Arafat viewed the Oslo process as an interim measure, expecting a fully independent Palestinian state by 2000.

He pragmatically engaged in security collaboration with Israel, hoping to build trust and ultimately achieve peaceful coexistence. In 1996, responding to ongoing Palestinian resistance, he even declared a “war on terror” and convened a security summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, involving Israel, Egypt and the US.

In 2000, the civil and security arrangements overseen by the PA became increasingly fragile and eventually collapsed, triggering the eruption of the second Intifada. This uprising was a response to Israel’s policies of settlement expansion, its firm refusal to accept any form of Palestinian sovereignty between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, and broader social and economic grievances.

In 2002, the Bush administration conceived the idea of refurbishing the PA as part of the Road map for peace. While Arafat’s leadership was perceived as a hindering factor, he had already collaborated with the US by implementing structural reforms, including the creation of a prime minister’s position.

Seeking to reshape the Palestinian leadership, the US engaged with potential alternative leaders, including Mahmoud Abbas, who eventually assumed the presidency of the PA in 2005 after the suspicious death of Arafat.

The PA took its first blow when Hamas won the elections in 2006 and was able to form a government. The US and EU rejected the results, boycotted the government and suspended financial assistance to the PA, while Israel halted the transfer of tax revenues.

Meanwhile, the PA security apparatus leadership refused to deal with the Hamas government and continued their work as usual, claiming they reported to the PA president’s office.

For several months, Hamas struggled to maintain its PA government, while Abbas and his supporters made significant efforts to isolate it.

In 2007, Hamas took over the PA security apparatus in the Gaza Strip and assumed control of all PA institutions. Abbas declared Hamas an unwanted entity in the West Bank and ordered the expulsion of the Hamas government and the imprisonment of many Hamas operatives.

After splitting the PA into two entities, one in the Gaza Strip and another in the West Bank, Abbas, along with allies Mohammed Dahlan and Salam Fayyad, led efforts to restructure the PA in the West Bank with full support from the US and the EU.

Restructuring PA 2.0
Under what we can call PA 2.0, two major restructuring efforts took place. First, it consolidated the Palestinian security apparatus under a united command. Led by US Army General Keith Dayton, the revamping of the Palestinian security forces aimed at deepening their partnership with the Israeli state and army.

Additionally, it sought to cultivate a vested interest among PA personnel in maintaining the role of the PA. Second, the restructuring of the PA consolidated its budget, placing all its resources under the Ministry of Finance.

This restructuring did not result in a “better” PA. It remained a dysfunctional entity, which mismanaged resources and service provision, leading to a severe deterioration in living standards for the majority of Palestinians.

Its leadership enjoyed certain privileges due to its security coordination with Israel and engaged in widespread corruption practices that have raised concerns even among PA supporters.

Meanwhile, Israel’s settlement enterprises continued expanding without limits and the violence employed by the Israeli army and settlers against ordinary Palestinians only worsened.

Restructuring PA 3.0?
The lack of support for the PA leadership and its dysfunction have raised concerns about whether it can play a role in the upcoming post-Gaza war arrangements that the US administration is trying to put together.

That is why Washington has signalled it will seek to revamp the PA once again — into PA 3.0 — with the aim of addressing the needs of various parties. The US administration and its allies seek an authority that can provide security to Israel and engage in a peace process without altering the status quo.

Since the start of the war, several US envoys have visited Ramallah carrying the same message: that the PA needs to be revamped. In December US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan met with Abbas and al-Sheikh (the PLO secretary-general) urging them to “bring new blood” into the government. Al-Sheikh is considered a possible successor to Abbas, who could be part of these efforts to restructure the PA.

However, after more than 100 days since the start of the Israeli war on Gaza, it looks like Washington does not have a concrete plan and only has some general ideas which the PA has declared a readiness to discuss. More importantly, the US vision does not seem to take into account the will of the Palestinian people.

The Palestinian public clearly demands a leadership that can head a democratic, national entity capable of fulfilling the Palestinian national aspirations, including creating an independent state and realising the Palestinians’ right of return to their homelands.

Revamping the PA implies intensifying cooperation with Israel and providing Israeli settlers with more security, which effectively means more insecurity and dispossession for the Palestinians.

As a result, the Palestinian people will continue to perceive the PA as illegitimate and public anger, upheaval and resistance will continue to grow.

In this sense, the US vision for revamping the PA would fail because it would not address the core issues of Israeli occupation and apartheid, which successive American administrations have systematically and purposefully ignored.