The alleged beating followed a prison visit to Marwan Barghouti by the Israeli national security minister, Itamar Ben Gvir in August. Ben Gvir, a member of an extreme right party who has past convictions from Israeli courts for incitement to racism and support for a terrorist organisation, taunted Barghouti in a video clip published at the time.
According to Arab Barghouti, Ben Gvir also showed the 66-year-old prisoner a picture of an electric chair, and told him he deserved to be executed.
In a statement quoted in Maariv newspaper on Wednesday, Ben Gvir denied the assault allegations, but added that he was “proud that [Barghouti’s] situation has changed radically during my tenure – play time is over, holiday camps are over.
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Barghouti consistently tops polls as the most popular leader among Palestinians. He has been in prison for more than 20 years after being convicted of planning attacks that led to five civilians being killed, and sentenced to five life sentences plus 40 years. The trial was criticised as deeply flawed by the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
As part of the US-brokered ceasefire deal that took effect over the weekend, 250 Palestinian prisoners serving life sentences were released, and most of them deported to Egypt. The Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu vetoed Barghouti’s inclusion on the list of prisoners to be freed as part of the deal.
It’s so bizarre… surreal… darkly comic – I don’t know the right phrasing for this – that Ben G’vir so embodies this Israeli form of double-speak. He will deny and confess in the same sentence.
He is the kind of guy who will say ‘Any accusation that I am a torturer is a lie! Also, though, I do believe that torture is appropriate and I’m very committed to acting on that belief.’
So much has happened, many people don’t know or remember. But I feel like the Sde Tilman riots were a turning point. Soldiers caught on camera raping a man in detention. And the public outcry including from members of the government was ‘They’re innocent! And also completely justified in raping that man! We’re not criminals! And also we will bring furious violence against anyone who tries to hold us accountable under the law!’
Trump does this too, though even he isn’t as skilled at it. ‘To call me a fascist is slander! How dare you! But also I don’t consider that a bad thing.’
It’s very dark.