Trib gets is right on Barghouti

in editorial today - and this is the whole point:

Barghouti's supporters sometimes compare him to former South African President Nelson Mandela, who spent years in prison under the apartheid regime. But Barghouti is no Mandela. He's a promising politician who turned thug. Despite his claims of being a political prisoner and mounting pressure to release him, Barghouti belongs in jail. He may be popular among some Palestinians, but his popularity is the kind that Arafat courted, the kind that makes real negotiations and compromise impossible. His popularity is a promise of more violence.

Now, lest we forget, Abbas is linked to Holocaust denial, but wading in the Palestinian morass of atavistic hatred, he's a step in the right direction.