TEL AVIV, 3 June 2003 — Jailed Palestinian uprising leader Marwan Barghouti repeated yesterday his charge that an Israeli court had no authority to try him, using Israeli Premier Ariel Sharon’s recent statements against Israel’s occupation of the West Bank as a defense. Referring to Sharon’s statement from last week that the occupation had to end, Barghouti told the judges in the Tel Aviv District Court that “if your prime minister recognizes there is occupation, what do you expect people under occupation to do? To resist,”
Barghouti, the former West Bank head of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah movement, is on trial for multiple counts of murder, charged by the Israelis with having played a role in dozens of attacks which killed 26 Israelis after the uprising broke out in September 2000.
“How can you take us to court for our struggle against occupation when even your prime minister recognizes its evil deeds?” the firebrand of Fatah asked the judges. Barghouti demanded the Israeli government “apologize for the 36 years of occupation” of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories which the Jewish state seized in the 1967 Middle East War.
Sharon had said last week that Israel could not go on inflicting an “occupation regime” on 3.5 million Palestinians and warned of its negative effects on both sides. Following an outcry his comments caused among his right-wing supporters, the prime minister revised his words and stressed the appropriate term was “the disputed territories”. The court session also heard the last two witnesses of the prosecution in the nine-month-old trial: a policeman and an agent of the Shin Beth internal security services, who spoke behind closed doors.
Barghouti reiterated his rejection of the court’s right to try him and the judges gave the 43-year-old until July 14 to decide whether or not he wanted to be heard as a witness or find other witnesses for his defense. The man widely perceived as the inspiration behind the 32-month-old Palestinian uprising is accused of “heading a terrorist organization” and charged with 26 counts of murder.
In yesterday’s court session he referred to an upcoming Israeli-Palestinian summit, slated for tomorrow, in which the sides are expected to renew calls for living in peace and security. “Sharon is going to recognize a Palestinian state in two days,” Barghouti said. “So what did I do? It is legitimate to resist.” Ending the prosecution stage of the trial, the court gave Barghouti until July 14 to decide if he wants to conduct a defense before the trial goes to its verdict stage. Barghouti has so far refused to provide a defense, telling the court in a previous session that the trial was a “show” and “the court is only representing the Israeli occupation”.
The court gave Barghouti six weeks to decide whether he plans to testify and continue not to provide a defense. His trial will resume on July 14. Israeli commandos arrested Barghouti in Ramallah in April last year. An indictment was filed against him in August.
Barghouti, listed among potential successors to Arafat, said Sharon’s stand showed there was no basis for his trial. Barghouti is charged with orchestrating attacks that killed 26 Israelis since the start of the 32-month-old revolt for independence. Israel has used his trial to try to prove the Palestinian leadership’s link to the violence. Barghouti, 43, has denied the charges and accused Israel of mounting a political show trial. He has refused to recognize Israel’s right to try him and has put up no defense.
Meanwhile, Qaddoura Fares, a Palestinian lawmaker close to Barghouti, said the jailed leader had sent messages via his lawyers to militant factions urging them to halt attacks as requested by the reformist Palestinian prime minister. Sari Nusseibeh, a leading Palestinian moderate who attended the court session, called for Barghouti’s release. “An agreement must be based on people like him coming back to lead the Palestinian people,” Nusseibeh told reporters.
In another development, the Muslim Brotherhood charged yesterday that US President George W. Bush will lobby Arab leaders to support “a plot to choke” the Palestinian uprising.
The organization called on the Arab leaders taking part with Bush in the summit today at the Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh to “firmly oppose the plot and to clearly support the rights of the Palestinians.”
The Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt’s largest opposition group, added in a statement in Cairo that the so-called road map to peace between Israel and the Palestinians was a “deception” that “serves the interests of the Jews.”
Several leftist groups in Egypt have also issued statements protesting the visit of the US leader whom they mocked as “Bush the executioner,” and have also slammed Egypt’s hosting of the summit.
Drawn up by the United States, United Nations, Russia and the European Union, the road map lays out steps to end violence, revive political talks and create a Palestinian state next to a secure Israel by 2005. It also demands that Israel freeze all settlement activity and dismantle all illegal outposts built in the West Bank since Sharon took power in March 2001.
