Marwan Barghouti
Marwan BarghoutiFlash 90

Palestinian arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti of Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah faction has been submitted as a candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Fatah spokesperson Fayez Abu Aita announced Barghouti's name was submitted for the Nobel Peace Prize by Adolfo Perez Esquivel of Argentina, who won the Nobel Prize back in 1980 for his human rights work.

"This is a victory for the struggle of our people and an expression of the deep faith in the justice of the Palestinian issue and the legitimacy of the international Palestinian struggle to return the rights of our people," said Abu Aita.

The Fatah spokesperson praised the "great" role that "the warrior" Barghouti played along with other jailed Palestinian terrorists, calling on the international community to demand their release from Israeli prisons.

Barghouti was sentenced to five life sentences in 2002 after being convicted of multiple murder and attempted murder charges for attacks carried out by Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades on Israeli civilians and soldiers during the Second Intifada.

He is considered one of the founders of "Tanzim," one of Fatah's armed terrorist factions, and has continued to exert great influence within the party even from prison. Likewise he has been visited by Arab MKs, and has sought presidency of the PA from jail.

Regarding the Nobel Peace Prize, recent candidates were US Secretary of State John Kerry and Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif for their work forming the controversial nuclear deal - which reportedly has already sparked a regional nuclear race. Kerry and Zarif ended up being snubbed by the prize committee.

There is a long history of surprising Nobel Peace Prizes. US President Barack Obama won the award in 2009 after less than a year in office, and before having taken any concrete steps in his post that would have possibly warranted the more than $1 million prize.

Geir Lundestad, former Director of the Nobel Institute for 25 years, said last September that giving Obama the award was a mistake.

As dubious as the award given to Obama just after his election was, perhaps even more controversial was the prize awarded to Yasser Arafat, the founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and an arch-terrorist responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israelis.

Arafat was given the prize together with then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin after the 1994 Oslo Accords.