BONO HAS CALLED for the release of Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti, who has been held in an Israeli prison since 2002.

Barghouti, 66, is serving five life sentences and an additional 40 years after he was convicted by Israel of deadly attacks during the Second Intifada, which he denies.

Bono has called for Barghouti to be released from prison, giving his support to the “Free Marwan” campaign.

In an article published by The Atlantic, the U2 singer draws on the peace process in Northern Ireland to highlight the need to “find an enemy you can work with” to prevent future violence, and says that Israel releasing Barghouti could be a step on the path towards securing peace for Palestine and Israel.

Writing about the conditions Barghouti has faced in prison, Bono says that there have been reports of beatings, starvation, and long stretches in solitary confinement going back years.

“In recent months, despite reports of a brutal beating that left him unconscious, Israeli officials still refuse to allow Marwan’s family or the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit him and verify his condition, only allowing his lawyer the rarest of visits. This is outrageous. The ICRC should be allowed to see him immediately,” Bono writes.

He also says there are “grave concerns” outstanding about the legitimacy of the trial that put Barghouti in prison in the first place.

Marwan Barghouti at a court in Jerusalem in 2012 Alamy Stock Photo Alamy Stock Photo

Earlier this week, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir reportedly said that Barghouti should be executed.

Responding to the remarks, Bono likened Barghouti to Nelson Mandela, who served 27 years in a South African prison under the apartheid regime before later becoming the country’s president.

“Like Mandela, Barghouti is not a man of nonviolence, but he is a man who has recognized the legitimate existence of The Other… and this is why right-wing Israelis, including the prime minister, who fear a two-state solution, see him as so dangerous,” Bono writes.

“And why this week National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir has gone as far as to suggest Marwan be executed. Let’s be honest… What he really wants is the peace process executed.”

In The Atlantic article, Bono writes that Barghouti has a “singular standing” among his people and that polls have shown he could easily win a Palestinian presidential election.

Drawing on the the Irish peace process, Bono says that he doesn’t know what is sufficient to secure an enduring peace between Israelis and Palestinians, but that “as we saw in the Irish peace process, both sides must be represented by leaders seen as legitimate within their own communities, because only such leaders can make the hard compromises necessary to get a deal done”.

To those who say ‘it might go wrong’, my answer is it’s already very wrong.

“There’s no peace and no process. Despite decades of diplomacy the killing continues: Bloodletting, by its own appalling logic, begets more bloodletting… fuels an endless cycle of violent oppression and violent reaction. But it need not be endless,” Bono writes.

He says that in the Irish peace process, both sides “had to accept that the point is not to deny past violence: it is to prevent future violence”.

“And to do that, you have to find an enemy you can work with.”

“The key to Marwan Barghouti’s cell holds the possibility of unlocking so much more than his door.”