A New York Times op-ed published Monday by Marwan Barghouti is attracting controversy in Israel over his imprisonment on terrorism charges, which goes unmentioned by the newspaper.
Barghouti, a leading member of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' Fatah movement, wrote a piece titled "why we are on hunger strike in Israel's prisons," in which he explained why over one thousand Palestinian prisoners have begun their protest.
In 2002, Israel accused him of founding Fatah's al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades and of directing suicide bombings against its citizens, eventually convicting him of five counts of murder and one of attempted murder according to the Associated Press. Barghouti has denied these claims.
His status as a convicted terrorist was not mentioned in the Times' note at the bottom of his op-ed, which simply read "Marwan Barghouti is a Palestinian leader and parliamentarian." This omission upset Israel's Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid, who accused the Times of "intentional deception" in an op-ed of his own for The Times of Israel.
"Anyone who reads the column without prior knowledge of the facts will come to the conclusion that Barghouti is a freedom fighter imprisoned for his views. Nothing is further from the truth. The missing part of the column is that Marwan Barghouti is a murderer," he wrote.
He added that "The attempt by The New York Times ‘to be balanced' amuses Barghouti. He understands that this sacred attempt at balance creates equal standing between murderer and murdered, terrorist and victim, lie and truth."
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