Marwan Barghouti mural on security barrier
Marwan Barghouti mural on security barrierKobi Gideon/Flash 90

The wife of arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti has revealed that European MPs and political parties support her husband's candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize, and will soon come out and publicly express their position of support for him.

Fadwa Barghouti, the wife of the senior terrorist from Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas's Fatah party who is serving five life sentences in Israel, welcomed her husband's Nobel Prize candidacy in an interview with the Turkish Anadolu news agency.

She praised the Arab League support for his candidacy, which was submitted in early March by Adolfo Perez Esquivel of Argentina, who won the Nobel Prize back in 1980 for his human rights work.

According to Fadwa Barghouti the very submission of her husband's candidacy for the prize gives a message to the world that the "struggle" of the Palestinians is legitimate, and that Barghouti is a symbol of a legitimate "struggle" and not a symbol of terror.

Her talk of a European campaign of support comes after Labour party head Jeremy Corbyn - whose party is in the midst of a massive anti-Semitism scandal - was revealed in early May as having glorified Barghouti as an "icon," comparing him to Nelson Mandela of South Africa.

Barghouti was convicted of organizing numerous terror attacks against Israeli civilians, and was sentenced to five life sentences in 2002 for his leading role in planning suicide bombings during the 2000 Second Intifada or Oslo War.

Those life sentences stem from his conviction on five murders - Yoela Hen (45), Eli Dahan (53), Yosef Habi (52), Police officer Sgt. Maj. Salim Barakat (33) and Greek monk Tsibouktsakis Germanus.

The arch-terrorist is considered one of the founders of Tanzim, one of Fatah's armed terrorist factions. Numerous Israeli civilians were murdered by Tanzim terrorists under Barghouti's reign, although he was not tried for those murders.

Barghouti has continued to exert great influence within the Fatah party even from prison. Likewise he has been visited by Arab MKs, and has sought presidency of the PA from jail.

As outrageous as Barghouti's candidacy for the Nobel Peace Prize may be, it is not the first time an arch-terrorist has been considered for, or indeed awarded, the prize.

Yasser Arafat, the founder of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and an arch-terrorist responsible for the murder of hundreds of Israelis, was given the prize together with then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin after the 1994 Oslo Accords.

Recent Nobel Peace Prize 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.

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.