TWIST MY ARM:

Soldier’s Captors Say They Gave List of Demands to Israel (JENNIFER MEDINA, 4/09/07, NY Times)

Hamas militants involved in seizing an Israeli soldier whom they have held captive for 10 months said over the weekend that they had sent Israeli officials, through Egyptian mediators, a list of Palestinian prisoners they would demand released in exchange for freeing him. [...]

The list of about 450 names, according to the news reports, included Marwan Barghouti, a grass-roots leader of the Fatah faction and former leader of the Tanzim, a Fatah militia, in the West Bank. He was sentenced in 2002 to five life sentences for his role in the deaths of four Israelis and a foreigner. The list also reportedly included Ahmed Saadat, the leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, who is accused of coordinating the assassination of an Israeli tourism minister in 2001.

The Palestinian Authority information minister, Mustafa Barghouti, a distant relation of Marwan Barghouti, said on Saturday that “practical measures” to begin a prisoner exchange with Israel had begun.

“The Palestinians have done all they can regarding this case, and the ball is now in the Israeli court,” Mustafa Barghouti said. “Israel will now decide how quick the prisoners and Shalit will return home. If the Israeli government is serious in its intentions, it must seize the opportunity to end this chapter.”

The reality is that the Israelis need Barghouti to lead Palestine just as much as the Palestinians do, which is why it's often rumored that his arrest was just a Mossad operation to give him street cred. While false, it reveals the deeper truth.

Posted by Orrin Judd at April 9, 2007 12:52 PM