Mustafa Barghouti, President of the Palestinian National Initiative, appeared on PBS, interviewed by Christiane Amanpour broadcasting from London.
He accused Israel of “ethnic cleansing” and being incapable of attacking anyone without U.S. support, while claiming that “the only way to real peace and to a lasting peace and security for everybody is to solve the Palestinian issue and allow Palestinians to be free and independent.”
Other than free from Israel’s existence, what does a “free” Palestine mean? Free like Iran, Iraq, Syria, or Lebanon—dictatorships or terror havens?
Israel is the Middle East’s only truly free nation with women’s rights and religious freedom, upheld by elections and legal protections. It fully withdrew from Gaza in 2005, evacuating every soldier, citizen, and settlement. Palestinians gained control. Yet, since 2005, over 20,000 rockets have been fired at Israel, alongside terror tunnels and a Hamas regime dedicated to Israel’s destruction.
Barghouti’s “ethnic cleansing” claim is projection. Since its founding in the late 1980s, Hamas has been promoting rhetoric and policies aimed at destroying the Jewish state of Israel and killing Jews and Israelis around the world.
He also claims on PBS that Trump could pressure Netanyahu to end the war. Yet, Hamas has rejected ceasefires that don’t align with its goal of weakening Israel. Barghouti’s narrative vilifies Israel while ignoring the violent actors keeping the region in chaos and falsely suggests Trump could easily resolve the conflict by forcing Israel’s compliance.