Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

European Lawmakers Protest Hosting Relatives Of Jailed Palestinians

(JTA) — Lawmakers from 15 E.U. member countries protested the hosting at the European Parliament of relatives of Palestinians who are in jail for murdering Israelis in terrorist attacks.

The 17 European Parliament lawmakers from Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium and 11 other countries expressed their opposition to the move in an open letter they sent Thursday to European Parliament President Antonio Tajani. The letter was about the scheduled hosting that day in Brussels of relatives of Marwan Barghouti and Ahmad Sa’adat by members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with Palestine.

“We are utterly appalled,” wrote the cosignatories, including Fulvio Martusciello, chair of the European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with Israel, by the “offering of a public platform to relatives of convicted terrorists.”

Barghouti, a PLO militant, was sentenced by an Israeli court in 2004 to multiple life sentences for planning dozens of deadly terrorist attacks. Some observers of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict believe that among Palestinians, Barghouti possesses credibility that other leaders lack, and may therefore be capable of implementing compromises that may facilitate a peace agreement with Israel. Sa’adat, who was arrested in 2006, was the secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist group and one of the planners of the murder Rehavam Ze’evi, a Israeli cabinet minister, in 2001.

The European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with Palestine invited Barghouti’s wife, Fadwa, and Sa’adat’s daughter, Sumoud, to a discussion Thursday about “the situation of the Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails after the hunger-strike,” as the organizers of that debate described it.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.