The Palestinian Mandela

A disaster for the Palestinians, a disaster for peace, and therefore also adisaster for Israelis.

The Israeli political and military leadership is happy about the split,according to the doctrine "What's bad for Palestine is good forIsrael". This doctrine has guided Zionist policy right from the beginning.Haim Arlosoroff, the Zionist leader who was murdered by hands unknown on theseashore of Tel-Aviv in 1933, already condemned this doctrine in his lastspeech: "Not everything that is bad for the Arabs is good for the Jews, andnot everything that is good for the Arabs is bad for the Jews."

Will the Palestinians overcome this split?

It seems that the chances for that are getting smaller by the day. The gulfbetween the two parties is getting wider and wider.

The Fatah people in the West Bank, headed by President Mahmoud Abbas, condemnHamas as a gang of fanatics, who are imitating Iran and are guided by it, andwho, like the Ayatollahs, are leading their people towards catastrophe.

The Hamas people accuse Abbas of being a Palestinian Marshal Petain, who hasmade a deal with the occupier and is sliding down the slippery slope ofcollaboration.

The propaganda of both sides is full of venom, and the mutual violence isreaching new heights.

It looks like a cul-de-sac. Many Palestinians have despaired of finding a wayout. Others are searching for creative solutions. Afif Safieh, the chief of thePLO mission in Washington, for example, proposes setting up a Palestiniangovernment composed entirely of neutral experts, who are neither members ofFatah nor of Hamas. The chances for that are very slim indeed.

But in private conversations in Ramallah, one name pops up more and moreoften: Marwan Barghouti.

"He holds the key in his hand," they say there, "both for theFatah-Hamas and for the Israeli-Palestinian conflicts."

Some see Marwan as the Palestinian Nelson Mandela.

In appearances, the two are very different, both physically and intemperament. But they have much in common.

Both became national heroes behind prison bars. Both were convicted ofterrorism. Both supported violent struggle. Mandela supported the 1961 decisionof the National African Congress to start an armed struggle against the racistgovernment (but not against the white civilians). He remained in prison for 28years and refused to buy his freedom by signing a statement denouncing"terrorism". Marwan supported the armed struggle of Fatah's Tanzimorganization and has been sentenced to several life terms.

But both were in favor of peace and reconciliation, even before going toprison. I saw Barghouti for the first time in 1997, when he joined a Gush Shalomdemonstration in Harbata, the village neighboring Bil'in, against the buildingof the Modiin-Illit settlement that was just starting. Five years later, duringhis trial, we demonstrated in the courthouse under the slogan "Barghouti tothe negotiating table, not to prison!"

Last week we visited Marwan's family in Ramallah.

I had met Fadwa Barghouti for the first time at Yasser Arafat's funeral. Herface was wet with tears. We were crowded among the multitude of mourners, thedin was ear-splitting and we could not exchange more than a few words.

This time she was calm and composed. She laughed only when she heard thatTeddy Katz, a Gush activist who took part in the meeting, had sacrificed atoenail for Marwan: during our protest in court we were violently attacked bythe guards and one of them stamped his heavy boot on Teddy's sandaled foot.

Fadwa Barghouti is a lawyer by profession, a mother of four (three sons, onedaughter). The oldest, Kassem, has already been in prison for half a yearwithout trial. She is a dark-blond woman ("All the family members, exceptMarwan, are blond," she explained, adding with a rare smile: "Perhapsbecause of the Crusaders.")

The Barghoutis are a large Hamula (extended family), inhabiting six villagesnear Bir Zeit. Dr. Mustapha Barghouti, the physician who is well-known for hishuman rights activities, is a distant relative. Marwan and Fadwa - also aBarghouti by birth - were born in Kobar village.

Marwan Barghouti's family lives in a nice apartment in a co-dominionbuilding. On my way there, I noticed the widespread building activity inRamallah - it looks as if new buildings are going on every corner, includingcommercial high-rises.

Near the door of the apartment, an embroidered sign says in English:"Welcome to my home". The apartment itself is decorated with manyimages of Marwan Barghouti, including a large drawing inspired by the famousphoto that shows him in court, raising his handcuffed arms above his head like avictorious boxer. When the security forces were searching for him, they tookpossession of the apartment for three days and raised a large Israeli flag onthe balcony.

Fadwa Barghouti is one of the few persons allowed to visit him. Not as alawyer, but only as "close family" - a definition that includesparents, spouses, siblings and children under 16.

At present, there are about 11 thousand Palestinian prisoners in Israelijails. Assuming an average of five "close family" members, that makes55 thousand potential visitors. Those, too, need a permit for each visit, andmany are rejected for "security reasons". Fadwa also needs a permitevery time, which allows her only to go directly to the prison and back, withoutstopping anywhere in Israel. The three sons are not allowed to meet their fatheranymore, since all three have passed the age of 16. Only the young daughter canvisit him.

There is hardly anyone who is more popular with thePalestinian public than Marwan Barghouti. In this, too, he resembles Mandelawhile in prison.

It is difficult to explain the source of this authority. It does not emanatefrom his high position in Fatah, since the movement is disorganized and there ishardly any clear hierarchy. From the time when he was a simple activist in hisvillage, he rose in the organization by sheer force of personality. It is thatmysterious thing called charisma. He radiates a quiet authority that does notdepend on outward signs.

The war of vilification between Fatah and Hamas does not touch him. Hamastakes care not to attack him. On the contrary, when they submitted a list ofprisoners in exchange for the captured soldier Gilad Shalit, Marwan Barghouti,in spite of his being a Fatah leader, headed the list.

It was he who, together with the imprisoned leaders of the otherorganizations, composed the famous "prisoners' document", which calledfor national unity. All Palestinian factions accepted the document. Thus the"Mecca agreement", which created the (short-lived) Government ofNational Unity, was born. Before it was signed by the parties, urgent messengerswere sent to Marwan, in order to obtain his agreement. Only when this was given,did the signing take place.

I took advantage of my visit in Ramallah in order toget an impression of the opinions of Barghouti's adherents. They try not to beswept away by the climate of mutual hate that now governs the leaderships of thetwo sides.

Some of them strenuously oppose the Hamas actions in Gaza, but try tounderstand the causes. According to them, the Hamas people, unlike many of theFatah leaders, have never been in the West and have not attended foreignuniversities. Their mental world was formed by the religious education system.Their horizon is narrow. The complex international situation, in which thePalestinian national movement is compelled to operate, is quite foreign to them.

In the last elections, my interlocutors explained, Hamas hoped to gain 35-40%of the votes and thus gain legitimacy for their movement. They were totallysurprised when they got the majority. They did not know what to do with it. Theyhad no ready plans. It was a mistake on their part to set up a governmentcomposed entirely of Hamas members, instead of insisting on a unity government.They misjudged the international and Israeli reaction.

Marwan's adherents do not shrink back from self-criticism. In their opinion,Fatah is not without blame for what happened in Gaza. The movement did not actwisely when they arrested and humiliated the Hamas leaders. For example, theyarrested Mahmoud al-Zahar, the foreign minister in the Hamas government,humiliated him, cut off his beard and called him by the name of a famousEgyptian female dancer. This is one of the reasons for the burning hatred al-Zaharand his colleagues hold for Fatah.

I did not hear denials of the Hamas contention, that Muhammad Dahlan, theformer confidant and security advisor of Mahmoud Abbas, conspired with theAmericans to carry out a military coup in the Gaza Strip. Dahlan, the darling ofthe Americans (and the Israelis) believed, according to them, that, if providedwith arms and money, he could take over Gaza. That pushed Hamas to the decisionto act first and carry out an armed takeover themselves. Since the majority ofthe public supported Hamas and detested Dahlan, who was accused of collaboratingwith the occupation, Hamas easily won. Dahlan has now been sent into exile byAbbas.

Hamas' center of gravity is in the Gaza Strip. That is the problem of KhaledMashal, the Hamas leader who resides in Damascus. Unlike his two deputies, hehas no roots in Gaza. That's why he needs money to reinforce his standing there.He gets it from Iran.

(I would have liked to give some impressions here of the Hamas point of view,but it is quite impossible to enter the Gaza Strip, while our Hamasinterlocutors in East Jerusalem have all been sent to prison.)

How will the Palestinians get out of this bind? How canthey reestablish a national leadership that will be accepted by all parts of thepeople in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, able to lead the national struggleand make peace with Israel, when peace becomes possible??

Bargouti's followers believe that at the right time, when Israel comes to theconclusion that it needs peace, he will be released from prison and play acentral role in the reconciliation - much as Mandela was released from prison inSouth Africa when the white government came to the conclusion that the Apartheidregime could not be sustained anymore. I have no doubt that In order to bringsuch a situation about, the Israeli peace forces must start a big publiccampaign for Barghouti's release.

What will happen in the meantime?

There is hardly anyone on the Palestinian side who believes that Ehud Olmertwill conclude a peace agreement and implement it. Hardly anyone believes thatanything will come out of the "international meeting" that is supposedto take place in November. The Palestinians believe that it is a bone thrown byPresident Bush to Condoleezza Rice, whose standing has been droppingdramatically.

And if that has no results?

"There is no vacuum," one of the Fatah leaders told me, "Ifthe efforts of President Abbas do not bear fruit, there will be anotherexplosion, like the intifada after the failure of Camp David."

How is that possible, after the Fatah activists have turned over their armsand foresworn violence? "A new generation will arise," my interlocutorsaid, "As has happened before - one age-group gets tired and its place istaken by the next one. If the occupation does not come to an end and there is nopeace, a peace that will enable the members of this generation to turn to theuniversities, to family, work and business, a new intifada will surely breakout."

To achieve peace, the Palestinians need national unity, much as the Israelisneed a consensus for withdrawal. The man who symbolizes the hope for unity amongthe Palestinians is sitting now in Hasharon jail.