Barghouti, a member of Fatah's Central Committee, was
sentenced by an Israeli court to five life sentences in 2004 following his
implication in terrorist attacks against Israelis during the Second Intifada.
"Israel uses negotiations as a cover for continuing
its policies of Jewish domination, settlement, incursion and siege,"
Barghouti told the Arabic daily Asharq Al-Awsat in a message from his prison
cell. "There are no de Gaulles or de Klerks in Israel, but only extremist
leaders who cling to the mentality of occupation, settlement and racism."
Barghouti was quoted as telling his lawyer Elias Sabbagh
that negotiations should only begin after Israel explicitly states its
commitment to withdraw to 1967 borders. He added that Israel must acknowledge
the Palestinian right to establish a fully sovereign state with Jerusalem as
its capital, to release all Palestinian prisoners, and to set a timetable of
several months for negotiations.
But in a conversation with The Media Line, attorney
Sabbagh denied speaking to Asharq Al-Awsat on the matter.
Ambassador Majdi Al-Khaldi, an adviser to Palestinian
Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said it was not up to Barghouti to make
policy.
"The decision to enter into negotiations with Israel
is an Arab and Palestinian decision," he told the Media Line. "It's
not a personal matter. There are Palestinian institutions that make these
decisions, and it's not up to private people."
"Usually such personal statements are intended to
show that there is a problem, namely that the Israeli side has presented no
position," Al-Khaldi said. "Many people on the Palestinian street are
pressuring the leadership not to enter into direct negotiations without a clear
premise, including a settlement freeze."
Israeli parliamentarian Haim Oron, head of the left-wing
Meretz party who meets regularly with Barghouti in prison, declined to comment
on the article but said he agreed that without an explicit Israeli statement
endorsing the 1967 borders and Jerusalem as a joint capital "nothing would
come of direct negotiations, even if they resumed following American
pressure."
"Negotiations in various forms have been under way
for the past 15-20 years," Oron said. "They should resume from the
point they had stopped."
Many consider Barghouti a moderate alternative to Abbas.
His latest statement, however, seems more like an overture to Hamas and the
Palestinian resistance.
"We must achieve national reconciliation, end the
state of division (between Fatah and Hamas) and allow the popular resistance to
act freely nationwide," he said.
A frustrated Barghouti harshly criticized the Palestinian
leadership for forsaking prisoners in Israeli jails.
"The leadership does not exert the slightest effort
for our release, and there is a clear neglect of the prisoner issue," he
said. "It is not on the agenda of the Palestinian leadership."
Osama Al-Ghoul, head of the information department in the
Palestinian Ministry of Detainees, argued the government was doing its best to
achieve the release of Palestinian prisoners.
"We exert our best efforts within the framework of
what is possible," he said. "We in the ministry cannot release the
prisoners by force, and our primary concern is improving prisoners' conditions
in jail pending their release."
Ahmad Assaf, a spokesman for Fatah, said that Barghouti
was a senior member of the party and as such his opinions carried weight.
"Like all Fatah members, (Barghouti) would prefer to
see change taking place faster on two fronts: the occupation and the internal
rift with Hamas," he said.
