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Barghouti is No Mandela
(Chicago Tribune) Editorial - Abbas is running as a moderate and practical politician who will avoid repeating the abject failures of the Arafat years. Abbas has courageously and publicly condemned the violent methods of the second intifada, calling it "the total destruction of all we have built and all that had been built before that." Barghouti is known as one of the chief architects of the disastrous 4-year-old armed uprising that has pushed Palestinians deeper into poverty and despair while costing hundreds of innocent lives on both sides. Barghouti is serving five life terms for his complicity in a series of deadly terrorist attacks. Barghouti is no Mandela. He's a promising politician who turned thug and he belongs in jail. He may be popular among some Palestinians, but his popularity is the kind that Arafat courted, the kind that makes real negotiations and compromise impossible. His popularity is a promise of more violence.