Why is Zack Polanski championing a convicted terrorist?

As Zack Polanski said this week, after wearing a t-shirt in support of the convicted Palestinian terrorist, ‘let’s talk about Marwan Barghouti’. In the Green leader’s version of events, the murderer-cum-revolutionary icon and leader of the al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades was imprisoned for 25 years in Israel without a ‘fair trial’. Polanski also cited an internet quote attributed to Nelson Mandela – ‘What is happening to Barghouti is exactly the same as what happened to me’ – which has, of course, never been substantiated.

Barghouti, who is relatively popular with the Palestinian street on account of his charisma, has long been a cause célèbre among Western activists, who have found it most convenient to overlook his crimes. If anything, the way he has been cast in the mould of Mandela is testament to how, for these activists, everything is always about them and their worldview. After all, unlike Barghouti, Mandela was never convicted of directing attacks on civilians.

Let’s stick to the facts. Polanski’s claim that Barghouti did not receive a fair trial was based on a 2004 report produced by a French lawyer, Simon Foreman, on behalf of the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Union. While it is true that the report criticised the trial, mainly on procedural grounds, it did not exonerate Barghouti, and no international court has vacated the conviction. As such, the Israeli judgment remains legally in force.

Now to the case itself. In 2004, an impartial Israeli court convicted Barghouti of five counts of murder, one count of attempted murder, membership of a terror group and conspiracy to commit acts of terror. He was sentenced to five life sentences, plus 40 years.

Among his victims was a Greek Orthodox monk called Georgios Tsibouktzakis, abbot of the ancient St George Monastery near Jerusalem, who was killed in a drive-by shooting in 2001. He is understood to have been mistaken for a Jew on account of his beard.

The deadliest attack for which the Palestinian leader was convicted took place in March 2002. Gunman Ibrahim Hasouna opened fire with an M16 on the Seafood Market restaurant in Tel Aviv, where a hen party was taking place. He also lobbed grenades into the crowd (one rolled on to the dancefloor but thankfully failed to detonate). Two Jewish men, Eli Dahan and Yosef Habi, were killed in the atrocity, as well as a Druze policeman called Salim Barakat, who had bravely confronted the assailant. Thirty-five others were wounded.

Despite refusing to recognise the authority of the court and refusing to defend himself, Barghouti was acquitted of 21 murders for which the evidence was not deemed to be sufficient. Clearly, this was not the behaviour of a court that was simply rubber-stamping the case for the prosecution, whatever the Committee on the Human Rights of Parliamentarians of the Inter-Parliamentary Union might say.

At the time, the trial was both high-profile and traumatic. The cramped public benches of Court 602 in Tel Aviv were filled with parents of Israelis killed in the ambushes directed by Barghouti, some of whom openly wept as they clutched pictures of their loved ones.

Defiant to the last, Barghouti twisted the emotional knife by informing the court that he stood for peace and liberty and describing himself as a freedom fighter. The judge sternly pointed out: ‘A soldier does not kill civilians with bombs and kill children.’

To compare the Palestinian killer to Nelson Mandela, in other words, is a grave disservice to the South African leader. Nevertheless, Barghouti is undoubtedly an interesting character. He was never a raving jihadi like the late Yahya Sinwar or Mohammed Deif of Hamas. He is a nationalist rather than an Islamist. He began his political life in the 1990s as a relatively pragmatic Palestinian leader who supported peace in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the West Bank.

However, that had changed by the time of the Second Intifada in the early 2000s, when 140 suicide bombs killed more than 1,000 Israelis – some of them schoolchildren on buses. Barghouti was often spotted on street corners in Ramallah during disturbances, issuing orders by phone, earning him the nickname ‘Little Napoleon’. Then came the evidence connecting him to murders.

Barghouti knows how to play a Western audience. Even in 2002, while directing savagery against innocent civilians, he struck a relatively moderate tone in English. In a column for the Washington Post, he wrote: ‘while I, and the Fatah movement to which I belong, strongly oppose attacks and the targeting of civilians inside Israel, our future neighbour, I reserve the right to protect myself… and to fight for my freedom.’

What to make of all this? Here’s my take. Like other performative Palestinian firebrands, Barghouti knows that doe-eyed Western activists and journalists want to believe that he is a saint. So deep-rooted is hatred of Israel that liberals will lap up the most blatant lies and false comparisons, just to confect a Palestinian hero where they are otherwise lacking. Barghouti knows this; I know this; chances are, reader, that you know this. Sadly, the same cannot be said for the gullible left. Which brings us back to Zack Polanski.

Look, I get it. It must be frustrating to support a cause that has nothing to show for itself in terms of democracy, human rights, respect for women and minorities, the protection of homosexuals and the rejection of terror. To take as your tribune a people who spit upon all your values is a tricky position to maintain. But don’t expect the rest of us to join you in your circle jerk. Wishful thinking, in other words, does not a freedom-fighter make.

Jake Wallis Simons is co-host of The Brink, with former parachute-regiment officer Andrew Fox. It is available on all platforms now.