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US President Donald Trump said he would decide whether to push for the release of imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, a figure many see as capable of uniting Palestinians behind a two-state solution, Anadolu reports.
“I am literally being confronted with that question about 15 minutes before you called … That was my question of the day,” Trump told Time magazine in an interview published Thursday. “So, I’ll be making a decision.”
The comments came as Trump discussed Palestinian leadership, saying Palestinians “don’t have a leader right now, at least a visible leader.”
When asked about Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s potential role in post-war Gaza governance, Trump said, “I’ve always gotten along with him. I’ve always found him reasonable, but he’s probably not.”
Barghouti is a prominent Fatah leader often called the “Palestinian Mandela” for his influence and leadership qualities.
He was arrested by Israel in 2002 and sentenced to five life terms plus 40 years for allegedly directing deadly attacks against Israelis.
Barghouti tops most polls among Palestinians for whom they would vote for in a presidential election, making him a potentially unifying figure for a two-state solution.
This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
