Barghouti Calls for Rallies To Support Statehood Bid
Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti has called for mass rallies in September in support of a diplomatic bid to gain UN membership for a state of Palestine, news agencies reported Wednesday.
Barghouti, a figure widely respected among many Palestinians, said taking the statehood quest to the United Nations was part of a new strategy that would open the door to “peaceful, popular resistance,” the Associated Press reported.
Barghouti was convicted of murder for his role in attacks on Israelis during the Second Intifada and was sentenced to life in jail by Israel in 2004.
“I call on our people in the homeland and in the diaspora to go out in a peaceful, million-man march during the week of voting in the United Nations in September,” Barghouti said in a statement written from his jail cell in Israel and published in several newspapers.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
