- Wednesday, May 17, 2017

RAMALLAH, West Bank — The deliberate release of a video showing Palestinian politician Marwan Barghouti eating cookies and a candy bar in his cell while supposedly leading a hunger strike against conditions in Israeli prisons has widened divisions as the 50-year anniversary of the Six-Day War approaches.

Israelis say the video highlights the duplicity of a terrorist. Palestinians are convinced that the leaked footage is either a setup or “fake news” about a charismatic leader whom many Palestinians view as a potential replacement for Mahmoud Abbas, the 82-year-old president of the Palestinian Authority.

The controversy has risen as President Trump prepares to visit Israel on Monday during his first international trip as president. Aides say the president will discuss with Mr. Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the prospects for another diplomatic push to solve the Middle East’s most intractable conflict.

But the Barghouti controversy shows the smoldering passions on the ground that Mr. Trump will have to navigate.

“Barghouti is a murderer and hypocrite who urged his prisoners to strike and suffer while he ate behind their back,” said Gilad Erdan, the Israeli minister of public security who oversees the prison service that released the video. “This hunger strike was never about the conditions of the convicted terrorists, which meet international standards. It is about advancing Marwan Barghouti’s political ambitions.”

Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, took the opposite stance. Depicting her husband eating on April 27 and May 5, she insisted that the video was doctored to undercut her husband’s standing and the cause that sparked the hunger strike in the first place.

“Israel tries to make the strike political,” said Fadwa Barghouti, who added that Israeli authorities have allowed her to see Barghouti, 57, only about twice a year since 2004, when her husband was convicted of five counts of murder and membership in a terrorist organization.

“This is about the miserable conditions in the jails,” she said. “The strike is for humane visiting conditions, improved medical care and access to phones so the more than 6,000 prisoners can speak with their families.”

The hunger strike — now entering its second month — has divided Palestinians, who already face a deep political divide between the Palestinian Authority and the more militant Hamas faction that governs the West Bank. Some view the strike as a symbol of Palestinian weakness in the face of Israeli strength.

“After 50 years of occupation, the Palestinians don’t have a coherent or strong resistance,” said Abdel Sattar Qassem a political science professor at An-Najah National University in Nablus. “There is a lack of trust between the people and their leaders.”

Others view it as effective civil disobedience. Last month, Mr. Abbas’ security forces broke up a Nablus demonstration in support of the hunger strikers, injuring Khader Adnan and Mohammad Alyan, two former Israeli prisoners.

Such violence only fuels anger among those who believe any opposition to Israel deserves strong support, said Mr. Qassem. “The video can backfire on the Israelis and strengthen the resolve of the hunger strikers,” he said.

In late March, the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research released a poll showing that 33 percent of Palestinians wanted Barghouti to run for the presidency compared with 20 percent for Ismail Haniyeh, a leader of the Hamas movement.

The U.S. has labeled Hamas a terrorist organization, though the group in recent weeks has tried to soften its hard-line rejectionist stances. Mr. Abbas, meanwhile, has come under heavy criticism from Palestinians who say he is working too closely with Israeli authorities to build up his government formed in the 1993 Oslo accords.

Backfiring?

Some Israeli security analysts worried that the “snacking” revelations would backfire and strengthen the leverage of Hamas in the internal Palestinian strife.

“The video published by the Israeli Prisons Authority is real. The hunger strike isn’t just leverage against us Israelis,” said Liran Ofek, an analyst at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Security Studies. “It is first and foremost a tool for gaining legitimacy for internal Palestinian issues and a very effective one. Personally, I don’t think that filming Barghouti eating a candy bar and seeming to take part in this rivalry between Fatah and Hamas is ultimately in Israel’s interest.”

Many younger Palestinians lamented how their leaders’ deep-seated rivalries and weaknesses were undermining the larger goal that nearly all Palestinians share: to end Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which Israel occupied after the Six-Day War in June 1967.

“The hunger strike shows the failure of Hamas and Fatah — after years of the Palestinian catastrophe,” said Aya Shobaki, a 22-year-old Ramallah student.

Ms. Shobaki’s father, Fouad Shobaki, is serving a 20-year sentence for acquiring arms and financing terrorist acts on behalf of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the military wing of Fatah.

“The Palestinian Authority should put the prisoners at the top of their agenda in any negotiations with the Israelis,” she said. “Sadly, they haven’t done so and I doubt they ever will.”

Abu Sarah, a 20-year-old Palestinian and former prisoner from Hebron, said he is doubtful about Barghouti’s political prospects and the general outlook for Palestinian independence under the Fatah movement of Barghouti and Mr. Abbas.

“I got to know Barghouti in the Raymond prison,” Mr. Sarah said. “He is strong, intellectual, a good Fatah man who tries to create changes on the ground, but he hasn’t that much support, especially from Fatah itself.”

But, Mr. Sarah said, “he hasn’t had that much impact on the Palestinian prisoners movement overall. Since half of us spend some part of our lives in Israeli prisons, conditions there need to improve before another 50 years go by. At least Marwan brings international attention to the issue.”

Israeli officials have been incensed by the mixed reception to the video and the unexpected surge of support for the incarcerated Barghouti.

Israeli authorities released the snacking video a week after the Palestinian prisons penned an op-ed in The New York Times. The newspaper described Barghouti as “a leader and parliamentarian” while neglecting to mention his role in planning attacks against Israeli civilians.

“Barghouti is a terrorist and a killer and a phony,” said Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington who is currently serving as the deputy minister for diplomatic affairs. “His article in The New York Times was one lie after another. It’s sad that this is the best that the Palestinians can do. Am I optimistic that someday they are going to produce the right leadership? Not especially.”

Barghouti’s hypocrisy and the drama surrounding it illustrated why the Middle East peace process was dead in the water, Mr. Oren said.

“Even though the two-state solution might be a great ideal, I don’t think it is going to happen,” he said.

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