Once again, the idea of Israel freeing Marwan Barghouti, currently serving life terms for his role in deadly terrorism, is gaining purchase. Barghouti, say these dreamers, would unite the Palestinian people and offer dynamic leadership at a time when Mahmoud Abbas can do neither. President Trump is reportedly considering it, though we don’t know how seriously.
I’ve written about this before, but there is more to say. In February 2024, when the idea was last being discussed, I noted the problems with Barghouti personally. Foremost among those problems is the fact that he hasn’t actually renounced violence, as some of his supporters claim. He has, instead, made clear his determination to “focus” violence in Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem—places he refers to as “occupied in 1967.” If the West is looking for someone to spark an intifada in the holy basin of Jerusalem, Barghouti can do that for them.
I also pointed out that releasing Abbas’s main rival would unleash chaos on the Palestinian political system at precisely the moment it needs some stability. Abbas himself is failing at providing that stability, but that doesn’t mean Barghouti is the answer. He isn’t. His release would only exacerbate existing problems.
But aside from Barghouti’s personal failings, there is another reason Trump and his advisers should see the red flags here: Releasing Barghouti goes against all of Trump’s political instincts that have been successful in the Middle East.
In his first term, Trump discarded conventional wisdom and moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem. The Abraham Accords were built on the rejection of the idea that the Palestinians could veto Arab-Israeli peace deals that don’t involve them. Trump stopped letting the tail wag the dog, and he was able to introduce an entirely new paradigm of public Arab-Israeli normalization.
Regarding the war in Gaza, Trump eschewed magical thinking or taking the easy way out. He refused to pretend the war was over just because he wanted the war to be over. Now, because of that clear-eyed realism, the war may actually finally be over.
Freeing Barghouti in the name of Palestinian unity follows the same thinking that led France, Britain and Canada to recognize a Palestinian state despite there being no such state in existence. It’s the “easy button” solution, a fantasy. Trump has avoided taking shortcuts so far and has produced actual success. Barghouti is a shortcut, a belief that there is a switch that can be flipped and everything will get better overnight.
Freeing Barghouti is not thinking outside the box; it’s the box. That doesn’t automatically make it the wrong move, but it still runs counter to the instincts that have served the Trump team well so far.
Barghouti is a character from the past. Those who wish to return to that past—Barghouti was arrested during the intifada, back in 2002—might see him as a worthy successor to Abbas. But why anybody would want to replay that era is a mystery.
More than anything, Barghouti is a fraud. He is not a man of peace or a man of the people. (Prison cameras once caught him scarfing down candy bars during a supposed hunger strike that he was leading among inmates.) He represents everything the Palestinians will need to leave behind if they are to develop a serious national politics: Personality cults and a taste for terrorism are what got them here.
Perhaps the Palestinians will go down that path again, but there is no reason for Trump to pave it for them.
