A major Jewish American community leader privately lobbied for the release of prominent Palestinian security prisoner Marwan Barghouti as part of the hostage deal between Israel and Hamas that is expected to commence on Monday, three sources familiar with the matter told The Times of Israel.
As part of his efforts, World Jewish Congress president Ronald Lauder offered to travel to Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, where negotiations on the agreement were being finalized last week in order to make the case for including Barghouti on the list of 250 prisoners serving life sentences in Israeli jails who will be released in exchange for the remaining 48 hostages held in Gaza, according to a senior Arab official, an Israeli official, and a third source familiar with the matter.
The idea was nixed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office amid overwhelming opposition to releasing Barghouti, 66, among Israeli cabinet ministers who signed off on the deal, the three sources said.
Lauder’s decision to go to bat for an individual perceived widely in Israel and in the Diaspora as an arch-terrorist was particularly noteworthy given the Estée Lauder cosmetics company heir’s stature as the head of a major, mainstream Jewish organization.
Barghouti, the former West Bank secretary-general of the Palestinian, secular, nationalist Fatah party now headed by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, was sentenced in 2004 to five life sentences for helping plan terror attacks during the Second Intifada that killed five people in Israel.
Barghouti has denied the charges against him and claimed he was coerced into confessing and that much of the evidence against him was withheld. He has also rejected the Israeli court’s jurisdiction to try him as a member of the Palestinian Authority’s parliament.
Some regional stakeholders have likened Barghouti to formerly imprisoned South African anti-apartheid activist-turned-president Nelson Mandela, and view him as a potential successor to Abbas due to his widespread appeal across various Palestinian factions.
While he has expressed support for “armed resistance” against “the Israeli occupation” in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza Strip, he has also backed a two-state solution based on the pre-1967 borders and spoken out against targeting civilians inside Israel proper.
Former Shin Bet chief Ami Ayalon told the Haaretz newspaper earlier this year that Israel should release Barghouti as part of a hostage-release deal to end the Gaza war because “Marwan is the only Palestinian leader who can be elected and lead a united and legitimate Palestinian leadership toward a path of mutually agreed separation from Israel.”
Lauder, in making the case for Israel to release Barghouti, proposed that he be exiled outside the Palestinian territories. The former leader of Tanzim, the armed faction of Fatah, was on board with the idea, ostensibly hoping to continue his activism from abroad, the Israeli official said.
Lauder also proposed separating Barghouti’s release from the hostage-prisoner exchange and instead for Israel to frame it as a gesture to Saudi Arabia or one of the other Arab countries that also pushed for his release, the Israeli official said.
Ultimately, though, the effort never stood much of a chance due to overwhelming Israeli opposition to releasing Barghouti, who has become a larger-than-life figure even as he has spent much of his imprisonment in solitary confinement, the Arab official said.
He was seen for the first time in years in August when National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir’s office leaked a video of the minister taunting Barghouti in his prison cell.
Barghouti’s lawyer has also alleged that his client was severely beaten by guards — a charge that the Israel Prisons Service, which Ben Gvir oversees, has denied.
Egypt and Qatar, which have been mediating the hostage and ceasefire talks, also appealed to the US to intervene and convince Israel to release Barghouti, but the Trump administration “declined to get overly involved,” the Israeli official said.
Hamas’s leadership relayed to mediators that “Barghouti’s fate remains absolutely central to these talks,” the source familiar with the matter said.
Barghouti’s name was included on Hamas’s list of prisoners it wanted released in the deal, but Israel used one of its five vetoes to keep him off of it, the Arab official said.
“While Hamas pushed hard for his release, ultimately it could not be seen as holding up a ceasefire over one man,” the Arab official said.
The Arab official speculated that Netanyahu’s refusal to release Barghouti was due to both domestic political concerns and concerns over the prisoner’s popularity as a Palestinian political figure.
Netanyahu’s office and Lauder declined requests for comment.