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How a Top Palestinian Lawyer Became a Terrorist
(Ha'aretz) Ravit Hecht and Josh Breiner - Tarek Barghout, 44, was one of the best known lawyers who represent Palestinians on trial in Israel. Judges knew him, military prosecutors joked with him. But what his colleagues and acquaintances didn't know is that for the past two years Barghout has perpetrated terrorist acts in the West Bank. At one point he found himself representing Palestinians who were charged with carrying out an act of terrorism that he himself had perpetrated. Lt.-Col. (res.) Morris Hirsch, former chief military prosecutor in the West Bank, who knows Barghout well, said, "The feeling was that Tarek was not only defending his clients but that he identified totally with their acts of terrorism. I saw in him passion and genuine support for terrorism. It was expressed in conversations in the corridor, in meetings we held, in the hearings. He absolutely gave backing to actions against Israel." According to his indictment, in October 2016 he received an M-16 rifle with a tripod and scopes. A month later, after scouting two checkpoints, he set out at 2 a.m. with the rifle and fired 13 shots at two police jeeps. Subsequently, he carried out three more attacks on his own, two of which the security authorities didn't know about until his confession. In 2018, he decided to involve his old friend Zakaria Zubeidi, former head of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades in Jenin. From November to January 2019 they opened fire at least three times on Israeli buses. In the last shooting, two bullets struck the bus windshield and it crashed into an electricity pole, wounding the Palestinian driver, Mustafa Abu Elohah. The two were arrested on February 26. They at first denied the suspicions against them, but, according to sources knowledgeable about the interrogation, Zubeidi, presented with a range of evidence, confessed. On March 23, Barghout was taken to a hill above the Israeli community of Beit El, from which he could watch as Zubeidi reenacted their activities for the interrogators. This is when Barghout broke.