The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!
The Daily BS • Bo Snerdley Cuts Through It!

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Hollywood Marvel stars have new hero, demand freedom for convicted murderer

by

BS BULLETIN:

  • More than 200 cultural figures have backed a campaign seeking the release of imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, including Hollywood heavyweights Mark Ruffalo, Benedict Cumberbatch, Cate Blanchett, Tilda Swinton and Ian McKellen.
  • Supporters portray Barghouti as a Palestinian political prisoner and potential peacemaker, with comparisons to Nelson Mandela — but an Israeli civilian court convicted him of five murders, attempted murder and membership in a terrorist organization.
  • Critics of the celebrity campaign say there’s one group conspicuously missing from Hollywood’s story: the five people whose murders produced Barghouti’s five life sentences.

Hollywood has found another cause.

This time, some of the people who play superheroes would like Israel to release a man serving five life sentences for murder.

More than 200 cultural figures have reportedly thrown their support behind the “Freedom for Marwan” campaign calling for the release of Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti.

Among them are some enormous names, including Mark Ruffalo. Benedict Cumberbatch. Cate Blanchett. Tilda Swinton. Ian McKellen and Don Cheadle. More than 20 performers associated with Marvel and superhero films alone have joined the effort.

The campaign presents Barghouti as a Palestinian political prisoner whose release could help produce peace. Some supporters have gone considerably further, comparing him to Nelson Mandela. There’s just one rather large problem with that story: Five murder convictions.

Barghouti, a senior Fatah leader, was prosecuted in an Israeli civilian court and convicted in 2004 of five counts of murder, attempted murder and membership in a terrorist organization for his role in attacks during the Second Intifada. He received five life sentences. And those five murder counts have names attached to them.

Georgios Tsibouktzakis was a Greek Orthodox monk shot to death while driving near Jerusalem. Yoela Hen was an American-born Israeli woman killed in a shooting attack at a Jerusalem gas station. Eli Dahan and Yosef Habi were killed when a gunman opened fire at the Seafood Market restaurant in Tel Aviv. Israeli Druze police officer Salim Barakat was killed responding to that attack.

That’s the part of the story critics say Hollywood’s campaign has airbrushed away.

Barghouti has long rejected the legitimacy of the Israeli court that tried him, refusing to present a traditional defense because he said Israel had no jurisdiction over him. His supporters say he is a political prisoner, allege mistreatment in Israeli custody and argue that his popularity among Palestinians could make him an important figure in a future peace settlement.

He also wasn’t simply convicted of everything Israeli prosecutors threw at him. The court acquitted Barghouti on numerous other murder charges after finding prosecutors had failed to prove his responsibility to the required legal standard. But five murder convictions remained.

That’s why Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, an Israeli attorney whose Shurat HaDin Law Center represents victims of terrorism, is furious about the celebrity campaign. In a New York Post column published Sunday, she argued that Hollywood has transformed Barghouti from a convicted murderer into a fashionable political symbol while the actual victims disappear from the narrative.

Her challenge to the stars is brutally simple: Learn their names.

The Mandela comparison is especially controversial. Nelson Mandela helped found the African National Congress’s armed wing and supported sabotage as part of the struggle against apartheid. Barghouti’s convictions, by contrast, involved attacks in which civilians were murdered.

Critics argue that collapsing those histories into the same heroic narrative ignores precisely what Barghouti was convicted of doing.

Hollywood celebrities are free to argue that releasing Barghouti would advance peace. They’re free to question his trial. They’re free to condemn his treatment in prison. But if you’re going to demand freedom for a man serving five life sentences, the five murder convictions don’t become optional background information. Neither do the people who died.

Hollywood has told us Barghouti’s name. His victims had names too.

MY QUICK TAKE

This is where celebrity activism loses me.

If Mark Ruffalo and Benedict Cumberbatch want to argue that releasing Marwan Barghouti would somehow advance peace, make the argument.

But make the whole argument.

Tell people what he was convicted of. Tell them about the American-born woman killed at a gas station. Tell them about the two men murdered at a restaurant. Tell them about the cop who died responding.

Then explain why freeing the man convicted in those killings is the moral thing to do.

That’s considerably harder than signing a petition.

DBS WIRE SOURCES

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