Calling for resistance, Barghouti says PA's role must be reconsidered

The leader of the Fatah movement detained by Israel, Marwan Barghouti, called on Tuesday for the Palestinian Authority (PA) to support both “comprehensive resistance and the gun”, Arabs48 news website reported.

In a letter written from the Hadarim prison in Israel on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of the death of former President Yasser Arafat, Arabs48 quoted Barghouti as saying: “Adhering to the legacy of Arafat, his principles and his constants, which he and tens of thousands have died for, requires the continuation of the process of national reconciliation on a correct basis, supporting the unity government and adhering to the choice of a comprehensive resistance while holding a gun; Arafat, Abu Jihad, Ahmed Yassin, Al-Shikaki, Abu Ali Mustafa, Al-Karmi and Al-Jabari all died with a gun in their hands.”

Barghouti also highlighted “the need to again reconsider resistance as the choice with the shortest route to defeating the occupation and achieving freedom.”

Accordingly, he called for “reconsidering the PA’s role and duties so that its first and main task would be supporting the overall resistance, requiring an immediate halt to the security coordination and cooperation, which worries the occupation”.

Barghouti was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to four life terms and twenty years, on charges of leading a Palestinian armed uprising in 2000 that killed Israelis.

He reiterated in his letter that Israel and the United States are both accountable for the killing of Arafat, saying: “The assassination of Arafat was an official Israeli-US decision, after a continued military and political blockade that aimed to defeat the blessed Al-Aqsa Intifada and hit the resistance.”

Palestinians commemorated the tenth anniversary of Arafat’s death on Tuesday, holding an official ceremony in the provincial headquarters in Ramallah.

Arafat died at the age of 75 on 11 November 2004 in a military hospital in France, near Paris, after a sudden deterioration in his health while trapped in his Ramallah headquarters, where he was under a siege imposed by the occupation’s army since December 2001.