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Source: https://www.jns.org/the-canonization-of-marwan-barghouti/
The Canonization of Marwan Barghouti
(JNS) Melanie Phillips - Imprisoned former Fatah terrorist leader Marwan Barghouti, 66, consistently leads opinion polls asking Palestinian Arabs who they want to replace Mahmoud Abbas, 90, as head of the Palestinian Authority. Some 200 high-profile actors and musicians have now called for his release, claiming that he has been "illegally held by Israel" for more than two decades. Barghouti was properly convicted in 2002, with overwhelming evidence, for orchestrating multiple deadly terror attacks during the Second Intifada, in which five people, including four Israelis and a Greek monk, were murdered. The court determined that Barghouti also bore moral responsibility for numerous other terror attacks in which many more Israelis were murdered. Those calling for his release are promoting as a hero someone responsible for heinous acts of murder. The terrorist's violence is sanitized, and the innocents he has murdered are dehumanized. The celebrities think these victims deserved what they got because their very existence was an offense against the righteousness of the cause. The Palestinian cause has helped destroy the West's moral compass. This cause stands for nothing less than the destruction of Israel. The Palestinian Arabs say so repeatedly. They teach their children to hate and murder Jews. They demonize the Jews as rats or snakes. The Palestinian cause is the Trojan horse for antisemitism. And antisemitism is the Trojan horse for the attack on Western civilization. The writer is a columnist for The Times-UK.