He is by far the most popular Palestinian leader alive today – and yet few people in the West even know his name. Everyone one in Gaza or the West Bank knows him. That difference speaks volumes about who dominates the media narrative that we are spoon-fed every day.

Marwan Barghouti – known to many as “the Palestinian Mandela ” – has spent more time in captivity than Nelson Mandela did.

Barghouti, the terrorist, rotting in jail. Barghouti, the indomitable leader who has not given up on peace. Barghouti, loved by ordinary people as “a man of the street”. Barghouti, supporter of the Oslo Accords. Barghouti, the 15 year-old youth leader standing beside Yasser Arafat. Barghouti, once a member of parliament and Fatah secretary-general. Barghouti, leader of Tanzim, a PLO military wing, choosing militancy after the betrayal of the Oslo promise by the Americans and Israelis became fully clear. Barghouti, a leader of the intifada that restored hope to a broken people. Barghouti, the scholar and thinker. Barghouti, the political strategist and unifier.

Marwan Barghouti is also that most powerful thing: a living symbol of an oppressed people. Why do so few in the West even know his name?

“Resistance is a holy right for the Palestinian people to face the Israeli occupation. Nobody should forget that the Palestinian people negotiated for 10 years and accepted difficult and humiliating agreements, and in the end didn’t get anything except authority over the people, and no authority over land, or sovereignty.” Marwan Barghouti.

Researcher-writer Emad Moussa says imprisonment has become a defining part of the Palestinian national consciousness. In a 2021 piece for The New Arab he says that Marwan Barghouti proves you can imprison the Palestinians but not their struggle.

It’s not hard to understand why imprisonment is a central part of Palestinian consciousness. Norman Finkelstein describes October 7th as more like a slave revolt than a terrorist attack. Fellow Jewish scholar Masha Gessen likens Gaza to a Nazi-era Jewish ghetto. In fact all 7.5 million Palestinians are prisoners of the Zionist state. They are all prisoners of the history imposed on them by the powerful white nations of the West. Between 1967 and 2015 over 850,000 Palestinians had been detained by the Israelis. According to the Israeli human rights group B’tselem over 8,000 Palestinians are held by the Israelis. Many are held in secret IDF facilities and there have been........

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