Personal Info
- Country of residence: Palestine
Information
Marwan Hasib Ibrahim Barghouti (born 6 June 1959) is a Palestinian political figure convicted and imprisoned for murder by an Israeli court. He is regarded as a leader of the First and Second Intifadas. Barghouti at one time supported the peace process, but later became disillusioned, and after 2000 went on to become a leader of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in the West Bank. Barghouti is said to have founded Tanzim. He has been called by some "the Palestinian Mandela". Barghouti was born in the village of Kobar near Ramallah, and comes from the Barghouti clan, an extended family from Deir Ghassaneh. Mustafa Barghouti, a fellow Palestinian political figure, is a distant cousin. Barghouti was one of seven children, and his father was a migrant worker in Lebanon. His younger brother Muqbel described him as "a naughty and rebellious boy".
Barghouti joined Fatah at age 15, and he was a co-founder of the Fatah Youth Movement (Shabiba) on the West Bank. By the age of 18 in 1976, Barghouti was arrested by Israel for his involvement with Palestinian militant groups. He completed his secondary education and received a high school diploma while in jail. He is fluent in Hebrew.
Barghouti enrolled at Birzeit University (BZU) in 1983, though arrest and exile meant that he did not receive his B.A. (History and Political Science) until 1994. He earned an M.A. in International Relations, also from Birzeit, in 1998. As an undergraduate, he was active in student politics on behalf of Fatah and headed the BZU Student Council. On 21 October 1984, he married a fellow student, Fadwa Ibrahim. Fadwa took bachelor's and master's degrees in law and was a prominent advocate in her own right on behalf of Palestinian prisoners, before becoming the leading campaigner for her husband’s release from his current jail term.
Israel accused him of founding the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and attempted to assassinate him in 2001. The missile hit his bodyguard's car, killing the bodyguard. Barghouti survived but was arrested by the Israeli Army in Ramallah, on 15 April 2002 and transferred to the 'Russian Compound' police station in Jerusalem. Despite being out of the public eye for a few years, Marwan Barghouti remains a popular leader among the Palestinian people. According to polling data in mid-2012, 60% of Palestinians would vote for him for president of the Palestinian Authority if they were given that chance, and he would beat both Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh for the top post.
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