 |
 |
 |
|
|
Imprisoned Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti in a TV interview from his Israeli prison cell shown on Al Arabiya television, aired Sunday. (AP)
|
|
|
|
|
|
| By Israel Insider staff and partners January 23, 2006 |
|
| |
This week's Palestinian parliament election is a major step toward Palestinian statehood, uprising leader and convicted murderer Marwan Barghouti said Sunday in his first TV interview from an Israeli prison.
Wearing a brown prison uniform with Hebrew lettering on the front shirt pocket, Barghouti told the Arab satellite TV station Al-Jazeera that he hopes the vote will produce "a national reform government that enjoys a wide popular and parliamentary base."
The election "must be viewed as a big step toward freedom, return (of Palestinian refugees) and independence," he said. The election on Wednesday "should be seen as the beginning of the democratic uprising."
Barghouti is the top candidate for Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah Party, which is fighting a strong electoral challenge from the Islamic militant Hamas.
Israel permitted Barghouti to talk to TV reporters as part of his election campaign from behind bars, and he chose the two Arabic satellite channels, Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, giving similar interviews to each.
He welcomed participation by Hamas, which is contesting a parliamentary election for the first time. Hamas boycotted the first election, in 1996, refusing to recognize the interim accord with Israel that set up the Palestinian Authority.
The day after the election, he told Al-Jazeera, "Hamas will be part and parcel of the Palestinian Authority?[we] are heading toward being partners in the field, and in parliament."
Barghouti rejected Israeli criticism of Hamas participation, charging that Israel was looking for excuses not to negotiate. "There is a strategic decision in Israel not to deal with any Palestinian partner, even before Hamas entered," he said.
Israel, the U.S. and EU consider Hamas a terror group. Hamas does not accept the presence of a Jewish state in the Middle East and has sent dozens of suicide bombers into Israel, killing hundreds.
Barghouti is serving five consecutive life terms in an Israeli prison after conviction on charges of involvement in deadly Palestinian attacks. Israel has said it will not release him, regardless of the outcome of the election. Barghouti was a member of the Palestinian parliament when he was arrested in 2002.
He said any agreement with Israel would have to include freedom for all Palestinian prisoners. Israel is holding about 8,000 Palestinians and conducts arrest raids almost every night in Judea and Samaria, picking up suspected terrorists.
Barghouti defended his Fatah, under pressure because of a decade of corruption and inefficiency. "Fatah has practiced all forms of resistance, economically, social, health, security, politically, and Fatah is the one that launched this armed resistance," he said.
He said the struggle would continue. "As long as there is occupation, the Palestinian people have the right to resist," he said, calling for a solution "that allows refugees to return (to Israel), that ends occupation and settlements and releases all prisoners," with Israel leaving all of Judea and Samaria.
Israel's governments have all refused to relinquish all of Judea and Samaria and have rejected return of large numbers of refugees and their descendants, suspecting that the demand is a ruse to undermine the Jewish quality of their state, and offering compensation instead.
Barghouti said Palestinians would be honoring their "martyrs" by casting their votes, then named the late Yasser Arafat as well as Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin, who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in 2004.
Expressing his admiration for Arafat as "the father, the leader, the big brother, the national leader and the symbol," he said Arafat worked for peace, but "the Israelis don't want a peace partner." Arafat died Nov. 11, 2004 in a French hospital. Some have charged that Israel was behind his death, but Barghouti did not repeat that.
In a message to the Israeli people, Barghouti said, "I call them to realize that there is no future for this occupation (of Judea and Samaria). This occupation is a burden on them. They must be freed from it and its mentality."
The AP contributed to this report.
|
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
