Marwan Barghouthi is in prison already 23 years. He is the most popular Palestinian leader. I know Marwan since 1996 from the many meetings that he participated between Palestinian and Israeli politicians and security personnel that I organized before the second intifada.  Since he was arrested in 2002, I have had many opportunities to communicate with him though people who met with him in prison. Since the beginning of the Gaza war, Marwan, like all of the Palestinian security prisoners have been cut off from the world.  He has been moved repeatedly to several different prisons. He has been in solitary confinement much of the time, even in the dark.  According to what I have heard he has been physically abused and even starved.  My last direct communication with him was in June 2023. He then wrote that he was still committed to Palestinian Israeli peace based on the two states solution. He still believed that Palestinians had the right to use arms against the illegal occupation, but the armed struggle, he wrote, was their last resort. The more favorable path would be diplomacy and negotiations. He, at that point believed that with the changing dynamics in the region that it would be possible to reach a regional peace agreement that would provide Palestinians with freedom in a state of their own and also provide Israel with security through regional alliances. I don’t know if he has changed his positions since the beginning of the war on October 7, 2023. I have asked his family and his lawyer if it is possible to get a letter to him. They said that it was impossible.  He also has no access to newspapers – Palestinian or others, but I decided to publish this letter to him in Al Quds newspaper in Arabic with the hope that he might learn about it and maybe even find a way to respond. 

Dear Marwan,

I hope that this letter gets to you.  I know that you are experiencing hell in prison along with all of the other security prisoners. I imagine that you are experiencing worse conditions than for the average prisoner because of your important senior status.

The Palestinian people are facing the worst crisis in their entire history. The Palestinian ship is floating in the sea with no direction and the captain is too busy with his own interests to even notice what is happening to his people on his watch. The Palestinian people need a new leader and you seem to be the person that they want. It is time for you to come out of your shell of silence and to put forth a plan that can save your people, and by the way, it will also save my people at the same time.  What I am writing is the kind of statement that I hope you would agree to make.  It is based on things that you have communicated in the past and I hope that you still believe in this – perhaps even more now than before because of the horrors of the last 18 months. I believe that by you publishing the kind of plan that I am presenting, the pressure from inside of Israel, the region and the rest of the world will increase substantially on Israel to release you. 

Marwan, you now have to become to solution to Palestinian suffering.  That means you have to understand that Gaza has to come first. If the war in Gaza does not end and if stabilization and reconstruction of Gaza does not begin, the current Israeli government will remain in power and the horrors of Gaza that we already see coming to the West Bank will continueand increase as well.  It is time to adopt a Palestinian strategy that puts the Palestinian people and the Palestinian rights for freedom in the position of the most peace-loving people in the world. I know and recognize that this is very hard to do.  After Hamas’s crimes against humanity and war crimes, Israel committedcrimes against humanity war crimes in Gaza and eventually at some time in the future, there will have to be a process of truth and recognition. But now it not the time for that. Now is the time to end the war and to get Israel out of Gaza, despite the huge increase in justifiable fear and hate between the two peoples. 

Israel will not leave Gaza without the hostages being released and as long as Hamas in in charge in Gaza and remains armed. You are probably the only person who can seriously challenge Hamas to end their control over Gaza and to end their military presence. 

With the plan I am offering, the occupation does not end, obviously, but I think that with this plan, you can free Gaza as a first step that will lead to serious changes on the Israeli side as well those that will bring a change of government in Israel and hopefully a renewed genuine peace process – because both peoples have no other real option. Here is the statement that I propose that you issue: 

I, Marwan Barghouthi am prepared to immediately assume the responsibilities of governing the Gaza Stirp under the following conditions:

1. I will be appointed by President Mahmoud Abbas to lead a Palestinian professional government for Gaza, independent from the Palestinian Authority, until after Palestinian national elections when Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem will be united. 
2. I will establish a professional government for Gaza made up of credible and capable Palestinians without the formal participation of any of the Palestinian factions, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad.
3. My government will establish a Palestinian security force that will enforce law and order and will create stability and will not be engaged in any attacks against Israel. 
4. I will invite the Arab countries to send to Gaza a temporary Arab security presence to assist in the establishment of law and order and stability.
5. The Gaza government will disarm all militants in Gaza from all factions. No one in Gaza aside from the Palestinian government security force will be allowed to hold arms. 
6. The Gaza government will destroy all of the underground tunnels and bunkers in Gaza.
7. The Gaza government will ensure the release of all of the Israeli and foreign hostages in Gaza, dead and alive. 
8. The Gaza government will be in charge of the reconstruction of Gaza.
9. The Gaza government will declare a permanent truce with the State of Israel. 
10. The Gaza government will be recognized as an independent Palestinian territory, the first phase of a fully independent State of Palestine. Gaza’s borders will be recognized as sovereign Palestinian borders. 
11. I will call for the State of Palestine to receive full recognition and membership in the United Nations. 

The conditions for all of this to happen include:

1. The war in Gaza will come to an end. 
2. Israel will withdraw all of its forces from Gaza to the recognized international border.
3. The Gaza government will accept that a “no-go” security perimeter will be established on the Gaza side of the Gaza-Israel border in which Israel will issue a policy of shooting any non-coordinated entrance into the perimeter. The “no-go” zone policy will end in agreement between the Gaza government and Israel when the Gaza government is capable to ensure the no threats to Israel exist on that. 
4. There will be a release of an agreed number and names of Palestinian prisoners by Israel.
5. Israel and Egypt will reopen the border crossings into Gaza for the free movement of people and goods. The Gaza government has no objection to international inspectors to be located at the border crossings for an agreed period of time.
6. The Gaza government will work with the international community to establish a seaport in Gaza for the entry and exit of goods and people.  The Gaza government agrees to an international inspection mechanism at the Gaza seaport.
7. When conditions are right and in agreement with Israel and Egypt, the Gaza International airport will be reopened. 
8. Palestinian and international banks will be allowed to reopen for business in Gaza.   The banks can be monitored by a credible international inspection mechanism against money laundering and the transference of money for terrorism.  
9. With the issuance of this statement, Israel will agree to release me from prison and to send me to Gaza, after being appointed by President Abbas to head the Gaza Government.