Tawfik Tirawi, a member of the Fatah Central Committee and former head of the Palestinian Authority intelligence services, on Tuesday evening dismissed Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s condemnation of Fatah over its election of archterrorist Marwan Barghouti to its Central Committee.
Tirawi said that the Palestinians are proud of Barghouti for being “a leader and a warrior”.
He criticized Netanyahu's remarks and called them a blatant interference in the internal affairs of the Fatah movement.
In addition, Tirawi called on Fatah’s Central Committee and Revolutionary Council to act against what he called “Israel's attempts to impose facts on the ground.”
Netanyahu on Monday blasted Fatah for electing Barghouti to the top spot on the Fatah Central Committee.
"This is the leader of a terrorist organization who encouraged and led terrorist attacks that killed and wounded dozens of innocent Israelis. Barghouti was convicted for his crimes in an Israeli court and sentenced to five life sentences. In electing Barghouti, the Fatah movement radicalizes the culture of incitement and terror, and condones a convicted terrorist,” said Netanyahu.
He added, "Fatah is no longer satisfied with incitement in schools and naming streets and squares after murderers. Now it also places them in leadership roles. By doing this, the organization radicalizes the culture of hatred and distances peace."
MK Avi Dichter (Likud) on Tuesday backed Netanyahu’s criticism of Fatah, saying, “Anyone who voted for Barghouti should know that he elected a ‘walking dead’ who will continue to walk around in an orange robe between the walls of the prison. In Syria, orange is the color that symbolizes a person whose head will be cut off by ISIS. In Israel, the logo of the Israel Prison Service on an orange garment, are Marwan Barghouti’s proof of life, not his release document. The murderer ill rot in jail while we received a lesson in who is the most popular leader of the Palestinians for years to come.”
Barghouti is widely believed to have planned the Second Intifada, which claimed thousands of Israeli lives from 2000 to 2005. He has continued inciting terrorism from his jail cell.
His election to the Fatah Central Committee came during the Fatah congress, which was held in Ramallah in recent days and was attended by representatives of the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorist groups. They were invited directly by Fatah, despite the fact that Abbas is called a "moderate" by most of the Western world, while Hamas and Islamic Jihad openly call for the destruction of the state of Israel.
Addressing the congress last week, Palestinian Authority (PA) chairman and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas launched a tirade against Israel, reiterating that Palestinian Arabs will continue to refuse to recognize Israel as a Jewish state and that the PA would continue its efforts to approve a Security Council resolution against “Israeli settlements”.