Political stock rises for a Palestinian firebrand

Palestinian leaders are speaking in two voices these days about the future of the intifada: a worried whisper, and the defiant shout of a firebrand named Marwan Barghouthi, who advocates intensifying violence against Israeli targets.

Mr. Barghouthi, West Bank leader of Yasser Arafat's Fatah faction, experienced what he believes was a brush with death Saturday when a rocket fired by an Israeli helicopter wounded his aide, Muhind Abu Hilawa. Israeli officials said Barghouthi was not the target.

Undaunted, on Monday Barghouthi ridiculed a call by fellow Palestinians for shifting the uprising away from shooting attacks toward stonethrowing and political activities.

"You can't face the Israeli attacks against Palestinians by distributing flowers," he said at a press conference. "Resistance is the best way to face these attacks."

Instead, Barghouthi advocates a national unity government with Hamas, the Islamic Resistance Movement that calls for Israel's destruction, and other hard-line factions.

Barghouthi's unyielding views carry weight because he is seen as a politician whose stances reflect those of the street.

Young, dynamic, and by all accounts very ambitious, he recognizes Israel and advocates the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside it.

But he insists peace will only come when Israel is forced to completely withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

Barghouthi said that Fatah's strategy is to concentrate on the occupied territories, not Israel proper.

But he said that it was natural that there would be Palestinian reactions everywhere "if the Israelis continue their fascist policies."

"They shouldn't feel secure in Tel Aviv if we don't feel secure in Ramallah," he added.

Growing radicalization, fueled in part by Israeli assassinations of Palestinian figures, is helping to boost Barghouthi's stance and weaken that of Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders who seek a diplomatic way out of the uprising, according to Palestinian legislator Azmi Shueibi.

"They are fighting for their future political lives, which depends on their popularity," says Ramadan Safi, a Fatah activist.

"And they may lose, because in the future people will remember Marwan Barghouthi and not [PA Minister of Information] Yasser Abed-Rabbo and [Minister] Ziyad Abu Zayyad," two ministers who are leading advocates of renewing negotiations with Israel.

The radicalization is also fueling fears among some Israeli commentators that the Jewish state may eventually find itself without negotiating partners, and - in a worst-case scenario - face a Palestinian population that is more loyal to Hamas than to the PA.

"All of the Israeli declarations that Arafat and the Palestinian Authority are not partners, and beyond that, the responses of [collective] punishment and the assassinations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, humiliate the PA and strengthen Hamas," wrote Danny Rubinstein, Palestinian affairs analyst for Israel's Haaretz daily newspaper.

Just as some of the PA ministers fear a further erosion in their standing if the intifada rages on, Barghouthi has a personal interest in the uprising's continuing, says a political figure who knows him well.

"If it continues, he will be able to strengthen his position in Fatah and his popular position," he says.

"It will give him an enduring political role. He is ambitious to be the number two leader after Arafat."

Reflecting the views of some PA ministers, a statement carried last week by the Wafa news agency enunciated an alternative to Barghouthi's approach: "We have paid a dear price of blood, but we have to admit that no matter how many casualties we may cause the Israelis, we will not be able to win the war against them, and threatening the Europeans and the USA is a foolish step that will affect us negatively," the statement says. "Only by political measures shall we be able to achieve our goals, by the use of rocks to fight the Israelis on the roadblocks and in the settlements, not inside Israel and not using firearms."

The fact that the authors chose to remain anonymous offers a telling indication of how unpopular their position is compared with Barghouthi's.

Barghouthi styles himself as the very antithesis of Arafat's cabinet associates: honest in the face of their corrupt ways, out among his people rather than aloof, pure in his ideology rather than tainted by compromise with Israel.

And in contrast to those who came with Arafat from Tunis after the Oslo Agreement in 1993 and who are often viewed as outsiders, Barghouthi hails from the West Bank.

He served as a student leader at Bir Zeit University, before playing an active role in the first intifada from 1987 to 1992, for which he was jailed and then deported by Israeli authorities.

During the current intifada, he has been everywhere - at violent flashpoints, as organizer of demonstrations, as spokesman for the grass-roots militiamen and activists who have spearheaded the uprising.

Barghouthi's relations with Israel are more complicated than one might expect.

Deputy Internal Security Minister Gideon Ezra said Sunday that Barghouthi "deserves to die because he bears great responsibility for the escalation of terrorist attacks against Israel."

But the spokesman for the Israeli defense ministry, Shlomo Dror, recalls that Barghouthi enjoyed good ties with Israeli authorities before the intifada.

"He was reasonable and very practical," Dror says. "We had a lot of meetings with him because we wanted to know what was going on in the PA. If things stop, we can possibly go back to the same relationship with him as before. He has a very good chance to be one of the leaders of the future.

"There is a good possibility that all of this chaos can lead to someone like him taking over the area."