Barghouti acknowledged that Fatah, like Ramallah itself, is suspended between normalcy and perpetual combat footing. Not everything has changed formally from resistance to politics, Barghouti said of Fatah. We are moving from the underground to a political party, but we are not there yet. But lately he has been preaching more and more the value of the gun. You need more than one model, he said.
Armed struggle is a part.
No one in Ramallah doubts that Barghouti acts with the blessing of Arafat. Even on today s full plate of anti-Israeli rhetoric, street leaders and armchair activists leave room for verbal assaults on the Sulta, as the Palestinian Authority is known. Ramallah seems overrun with them complain mainly about human rights abuses and corruption. If the stones weren t flying at the Israelis, they d be flying at Arafat, said Abdul Jawad Saleh, a local member of the Palestinian Legislative Council and critic of the regime. If the stones weren t flying at the Israelis, they d be flying at Arafat.