Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., called for the release of an Islamic militia leader convicted of having led, operated, and participated in actions that resulted in the deaths of Israelis in the early 2000s.
Khanna acknowledged Marwan Barghouti’s criminal conviction but still justified his remarks by stating that the militia leader is also a Palestinian politician who is well respected among Palestinian factions.
“Releasing Barghouti does not provide him with a pardon or moral absolution of crimes he may have committed,” Khanna said in a video he posted on X over the weekend.
“So long as occupation continues, the intifada will not stop,” Barghouti said as he entered an Israeli court in 2004. “As long as Palestinian mothers are weeping, Israeli mothers will also weep.”
Barghouti is serving five life sentences after having been convicted in 2004 of complicity, one count of attempted murder, and one count of membership in a terrorist group involved in a spree of attacks that claimed the lives of a Greek Orthodox monk in the West Bank in 2001, one Israeli at the Jewish settlement of Givat Zeev in 2002, and three people at a Tel Aviv seafood restaurant.
“The release is needed to move peace forward,” Khanna continued.
In his video statement, Khanna then compared the convicted Islamic terrorist to leaders of the Irish Republican Army, who wanted peace and coexistence despite having carried out “terrible things.”
“Letting them participate in politics was the right decision,” he continued. “For now, we must begin to give Palestinians a voice in their sovereignty and their peace process.”
“Release Barghouti,” Khanna concluded.
In his video statement, Khanna did not mention that Palestinians in Gaza have been under the elected leadership of Hamas since the Palestinian Legislative Council election in January 2006. The Palestinian Authority, of which Barghouti was a member, has been democratically elected to govern the West Bank since its establishment in 1994.
Dave Rubin, a Jewish conservative commentator and host of “The Rubin Report,” slammed Khanna’s video statement online.
“I’m calling for free membership to your kids’ golf clubs that you use as a tax shelter!” Rubin wrote on X, citing Khanna’s latest annual disclosure, which highlights his three trust stakes in three private Ohio golf courses owned by his kids.
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