NEW DELHI: US President Donald Trump, who likes dramatic gestures and is eager for a win in the Middle East, should turn his attention back to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the issue that has long shaped regional politics. To make progress where all his predecessors fell short, he should engage the one Palestinian leader with the legitimacy to help him: Marwan Barghouti, who is now in his 24th year of imprisonment in Israel.
For years, the Palestinian national movement has suffered from a crisis of credibility. Too many of its leaders are seen by their own people as weak, compromised, self-interested, or detached from the daily realities of the occupation. The peace initiatives devised by such figures may look orderly on paper, but they rarely win the public’s trust.
Barghouti is different. His fellow Palestinians widely regard him as being uniquely capable of reunifying a fractured national movement and giving diplomacy the political weight it needs. Even from prison, his standing has not diminished. He was just elected to Fatah’s 18-member Central Committee, receiving more votes than anyone else; and his wife, Advocate Fadwa Barghouti, was elected to the Fatah Revolutionary Council with the second-highest number of votes. This confirm that Barghouti remains the most resonant figure in Palestinian politics.
Political leaders in Washington and Tel Aviv must not ignore this fact. You need leaders who can persuade their constituents that compromise is better than the status quo and not tantamount to surrender. Barghouti could do that. His promise lies not only in his popularity but in how he has used it.
It was Barghouti who played the key role in persuading imprisoned leaders from Hamas and Islamic Jihad to endorse the May 2006 Prisoners’ Document, which accepted a Palestinian state within the June 1967 borders. Even from jail, he could move Palestinian politics closer toward a diplomatically realistic national consensus.
Of course, Barghouti’s case exposes the deep contradiction at the heart of the conflict. For many Israelis, releasing him would appear to reward past violence. For many Palestinians, keeping such a popular, pragmatic leader imprisoned confirms that Israel is not interested in a negotiated peace.
Neither fear is irrational, but both must be overcome to make any progress. Imprisoned leaders and former combatants have often participated in negotiations that ended wars and conflicts, the case of Nelson
Mandela being the most striking example.
Trump could make a big difference here, given his willingness to ignore political taboos. A carefully calibrated US effort could test whether Barghouti’s legitimacy can be converted into diplomatic currency. The Trump administration could start by publicly recognising that Barghouti is a central political actor, not merely a prisoner frozen in time. It could then call for a political process in which his release, or at least his direct participation, is linked to clear commitments: endorsement of a two-state outcome, nonviolent political participation, and renewed negotiations under international guarantees that protect both Israeli security and Palestinian sovereignty.
Such a move would undoubtedly provoke resistance. But the alternative is the status quo: permanent occupation, periodic war, deepening despair, and the final burial of the two-state solution.
Barghouti is important not only because he is universally admired by Palestinians and uncorrupted, but because he is politically consequential. If Trump wants to shake up a dormant conflict, he should stop treating Palestinian politics as an afterthought and start with the one leader who might actually carry his people toward a historic compromise.