“Running for President.” “A Nobel Peace Prize.” “Egyptian efforts to secure his release.” “Establishing strategic relations with Hamas.” “Reformulating the relationship with the occupation.” All are phrases used in connection with Palestinian Fatah leader Marwan Barghouti, imprisoned since 2002 in the Hadarim prison in Israel and serving five consecutive life sentences for charges of murder and attempted murder.

Calls for his release over the last several years have never stopped. If anything, they have grown more frequent of late to an unusual degree — perhaps owing to the recent revelation by his wife, Fadwa Barghouti, in a televised interview Feb. 25 with the i24news channel that he plans to run for president in the coming Palestinian elections, repeating statements by many in the media. His intention to run was connected to his proposal for a new vision — which he declared in an interview April 18 with the Hamas-affiliated Palestinian Center for Media — about establishing strategic relations with Hamas based on 10 main principles, and it also was connected to another proposal for a new vision published in the Journal of Palestine Studies on May 9 arguing against negotiations as a means of dealing with Israel. This stands in marked contrast with the policies of Fatah. 

On April 5, president of the Tunisian Human Rights Defense League Fadhel Moussa presented the Nobel Peace Prize medal — won in 2015 by the Tunisian National Dialogue Quartet — to Fadwa Barghouti, who accepted the gesture on behalf of her imprisoned husband and announced his support for attempts to release him. Members of the Palestinian Legislative Council launched a campaign April 12 to nominate Barghouti for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Complementing the extraordinary groundswell of calls for Barghouti’s release, the Egyptian Foreign Ministry announced April 17 its desire for the Israeli authorities to release him, after a meeting between Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukri and Fadwa Barghouti that same day. This came within the context of her trips to various countries to build up international support for calls to release her husband.