The Israeli security minister released a video of himself hectoring a barely recogniable Marwan Barghouti, the unifying Palestinian leader who has been imprisoned since 2002.
Marwan Barghouti with two of his sons in a photograph taken by his wife Fadwa Barghouti in 2002. (Campaign to Free Marwan Barghouti and All Palestinian Prisoners /Wikimedia Commons/ CC BY 4.0)
By Aseel Saleh
Peoples Dispatch
Once again Israeli Minister of National Security Itamar Ben-Gvir has emerged as the No. 1 antagonist of the Palestinian Prisoners’ Movement after a provocative video was released on Aug. 15 showing him taunting Prominent Palestinian political leader Marwan Barghouti in prison.
“You won’t win. Whoever messes with the people of Israel, whoever murders our children, whoever murders our women, we will wipe them out,” Ben-Gvir told Barghouti.
“You will not defeat us. You have to know this throughout history,” he warned.
The video has not only showcased Ben-Gvir’s deep resentment and dehumanization of Palestinians, but showed the eminent Palestinian freedom fighter looking gaunt and weary, which in turn provoked the ire and condemnation of Barghouti’s family as well as the Palestinian grassroots.
Israeli right-wing minister Itamar Ben-Gvir was filmed entering the cell of prominent Palestinian political prisoner Marwan Barghouti to taunt and threaten him.
Barghouti is sometimes called the “Palestinian Nelson Mandela.” pic.twitter.com/2scTzIBeKg
— AJ+ (@ajplus) August 19, 2025
The miserable physical appearance of Barghouti represents a living embodiment of the continuously deteriorating situation of all Palestinian prisoners inside Israeli jails. Their situation took a turn for the worse in January 2023, when Ben-Gvir unleashed a brutal crackdown campaign directly impacting prisoners’ conditions and access to the outside world.
The image of Marwan in the video was so shocking that reportedly his wife Fadwa Barghouti did not recognize him when she watched the video.
“I didn’t recognize you or your features, and maybe part of me doesn’t want to admit everything your face and body express about what you and the prisoners have endured,” Fadwa addressed her imprisoned husband in a public message she wrote on Facebook. “They are still chasing you and pursuing you, oh Marwan, even after 23 years in prison and in the solitary cell you’ve been living in for two years,” she lamented.
“I know that the only thing that hurts you is the inability to protect our [Palestinian] sons and daughters,” Barghouti’s wife added.
“You are from the people, no matter where you might be you are with them, one of them, your destiny is related to their destiny. This is how you have been and will always be.”
For his part, Secretary General of the Palestinian National Initiative Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, a member of the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), told France 24, that the goading carceral visit reflects the fascist character of Ben-Gvir and the Israeli government in general.
“What he did towards our brother Marwan Barghouti is a terrorist crime and a murder threat,” Dr. Mustafa emphasized.
‘An affront to Mr Barghouti’s dignity’
UN calls behaviour of far-right Israeli minister Itamar Ben-Gvir “unacceptable” after he released a video showing himself confronting imprisoned Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti in his cell.
? LIVE updates: https://t.co/enWKSt6Pdh pic.twitter.com/4CLuW0WiU4
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 19, 2025
Meanwhile, Palestine’s ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour condemned Ben-Gvir’s abusive act against Marwan Barghouti describing it as “racist and fascistic hate, and a deplorable and immoral behavior that violate international law, which “prohibits such heinous acts in dealing with prisoners and detainees.”’
Marwan Barghouti has, for decades, garnered an extraordinary popularity among Palestinians nationwide and in diaspora. The 66-year-old patriot, who has spent over 23 years in Israeli prisons, is seen by his people as their “Nelson Mandela,” being a unifying revolutionary icon.
Furthermore, Marwan has for a long time been a strong presidential candidate, which made Israel more determined not to release him in any of the former captives-for-prisoners swap deals.
As a result, Ben-Gvir wanted to break the will of the Palestinian people as a whole through his attempts to break that of Marwan, by depicting him weak-willed and frail.
Aseel Saleh is a correspondent for Peoples Dispatch.
This article is from Peoples Dispatch.
Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
If I think of Dante’s “inferno”, I wonder what level of Heck Ben-Gvir will end up in, and what will be his situation? I rather suspect that perhaps he’ll have Bull Conner of Birmingham as mate on his detail. Or maybe the Devil might have fun and put him in with the racist hate-filled murderers from Auschwitz, making it plain that in the Devil’s eyes they are the same?
BTW, under these guys leadership, the Israeli economy is hemorrhaging $billions, and the army is now short 10 to 15 thousand in manpower in an army that really isn’t all that big. Meanwhile, the latest open genocide in Gaza is turning even some of their earlier co-conspirators in Gaza against them now. Apparently there are some things that even European capitalists won’t tolerate. Plus these fools recently launched a war that confirmed that Iran has now passed Israel in terms of being a power in West Asia. Being a bully who is the 2nd most powerful person in the neighborhood is not a good long-term plan. If you want to know if God can have a sense of humor, consider that Ben-Gvir sees this as “winning”.
Ben-Gvir is obviously a tyrannical asshole.
“You won’t win. Whoever messes with the people of Israel, whoever murders our children, whoever murders our women, we will wipe them out,” Ben-Gvir told Barghouti.
“You will not defeat us. You have to know this throughout history,” he warned.
This is a laugher as some historians believe he and his brethren have been kicked out of 109 countries. Unfortunately, these creepy Jew supremacist sadists now have approximately 200 nuclear warheads, uranium that they stole out of Pennsylvania in the mid-1960s with psychopath Angleton’s help.
Be warned, that 200 number for Israel’s warheads is a very old number. Israel has nuclear reactors in a complex at Dinoma. I don’t know if they stole or otherwise acquired uranium back in the 60’s, but that was a long time ago and Israel would be assumed to be producing Plutonium by now. And given that Israel got the nudge-nudge-wink-wink treatment at first, its hard to imagine that they couldn’t go get more uranium if they wanted it under the same system or a modern more relaxed version.
Interestingly, the AI I asked about this said that back under Clinton the estimates were that Israel had 400 warheads, but that nowadays the ‘experts’ say they only have 90. Frankly, I take that as sign of the way that the IAEA and other international experts have come under firm control of The Free World, and don’t really believe a word of it since Israel keeps all of this secret. Do not trust what you can not verify. Its hard to imagine Israel decreasing the number of their warheads, and without any international treaties or pressure, but for me it is easy to imagine that they’ve had an ongoing production process for making more.
Fascinating that the AI was trained to refer to Israel’s “ambiguity policy” instead of referring to them as a rogue nuclear state outside of international control.
Thank You Aseel