Israel Does Not Only Imprison: It Administers Torture

Ben Marmarelli is a civil rights lawyer in Israel and one of the few legal advocates who has dedicated his practice to defending Palestinian political prisoners. Trained alongside Avigdor Feldman, a historic figure in Israeli human rights law, Marmarelli now represents some of the most emblematic detainees in the Israeli prison system, including Marwan Barghouti. His testimony does not describe isolated excesses or occasional abuses. It describes, with legal precision, a regime of systematic torture administered by the state itself.

In the interview, Marmarelli argues that since October 7, the detention conditions of Palestinian political prisoners have deteriorated to the point of becoming a regime of near-total isolation. With no family visits, no access to media, and no meaningful contact with the outside world, detainees are reduced to a single channel of communication: the lawyer. But even that channel, he explains, has been turned into a mechanism of punishment. Legal visits are delayed, blocked, or directly used as a pretext for new sessions of torture.

The most serious part of his account is that the violence is not exceptional, but structural. Marmarelli reports beatings, prolonged stress positions, humiliation, sexual torture, and rape with objects during transfers inside the prison system. In one case, one of his clients asked him to stop visiting because every visit triggered new abuse.

The accusation is devastating: the system does not merely imprison; it administers pain, silence, and degradation as policy. And it does so, according to Marmarelli, under the gaze of courts that know what is happening and do not intervene. His testimony turns the prison into something more than a place of punishment: into an infrastructure of dehumanization sustained by the state.

Stephen Kapos is a Holocaust survivor, a human rights activist, and one of the mor powerful voices inn the Jewish response to the Israeli genocide in Gaza. His public intervention is not grounded in ideological positioning or political alignments but in a the personal memory forged in the crucible of the brutal history of the 20th century. By his own account, an inescapable ethical responsibility: not to remain silent in the face of dehumanization, whoever commits it.

In the interview, Kapos explains that his position does not seek to equate tragedies or trivialize the Holocaust. On the contrary, it is based on a clear premise: memory ought not be neither an identity asset nor a political pretext but a permanent warning about what happens when violence is normalised and civilian suffering is justified. From that standpoint, he denounces the genocide in Gaza and the treatment of the Palestinian population in Israel.

His testimony exposes a central tension of our time. Gaza is not only a geopolitical conflict; it is an ethical test for those who invoke and build their moral identity on the lessons of the holocaust as a universal principle. In that context, Kapos’s voice reminds us that neutrality in the face of mass suffering is not prudence, but moral abdication—and that memory, if it serves any purpose at all, is meant to unsettle power, not shield it.

The focus of the dialogue is a frontal critique of Zionism as a political project. Levy argues that the problem is not just a recent deviation, but a structural inability to accept a legitimate and sovereign Palestinian existence, and its transformation into an ideology that denies the possibility of a full Jewish life outside an armed Jewish state. The conversation also addresses the instrumentalisation of anti-Semitism and the Holocaust to block accountability, the erosion of democratic freedoms in the name of “protecting” Jewish communities, and the alignment of far-right governments – especially in Latin America – with Israel in a context of rapidly deteriorating international law. The conclusion is sobering: there is still no internal change in Israel, but there is an irreversible breakdown of global consensus; without a legitimate and autonomous Palestinian political movement, there will be no way out.

The interview that follows takes place in a context in which Germany is undergoing a profound deterioration of its democratic space, marked by censorship, police repression, and a systematic policy of silencing pro-Palestinian speech. Barenboim explains that the official German narrative —which seeks to atone for past crimes through unconditional support for Israel— turns the very existence of the Palestinian people into a political threat. That tension, he argues, enables everything from smear campaigns to the presence of special forces inside cultural and university events, with police monitoring even the interventions of the audience. For him, this dynamic is neither exceptional nor marginal: it is a deliberate mechanism to prevent dissent and consolidate a repressive framework that affects artists, academics, activists, and the general public.

Throughout the conversation, Barenboim details emblematic episodes —from the censorship of Adania Shibli at the Frankfurt Book Fair to the coordinated campaign to block Francesca Albanese’s lectures in 2025— which, he argues, show a systematic and documented pattern of cancellations, intimidation, and police violence. He sees in this process a sustained advance of a quasi-fascist climate and warns that Germany is in a “1932 moment,” where it would still be possible to intervene, even if there is no political will to do so. For Barenboim, the Palestinian question is central: without a 180-degree shift in German policy toward Palestine, the internal democratic deterioration will not only continue but deepen.

In her conversation, Kedar describes with precision how Israeli education is structured, above all, as a Zionist ecosystem that operates without naming itself. She defines it as “the air you breathe”: an ideology that shapes the historical narrative, school content, ethnic hierarchies, and the relationship with Palestinians. Kedar details how this system instills the idea of Jewish superiority, the notion of a democracy reserved primarily for Jews, and an emotional structure centered on permanent victimhood, built above all through Holocaust instruction. Her testimony describes how the national narrative links historical trauma directly to the need for militarization, turning schools into spaces where soldiers and teachers share functions, and where the transition into the Israeli Defense Forces is presented as a natural destiny. Drawing from her experience as a student and later as a teacher, Kedar exposes the depth of the dehumanization of Palestinians in classrooms and the impossibility of introducing even minimal elements of empathy without facing sanctions, threats, or censorship. For her, Israeli society —and its educational system— have reached a point where no meaningful change can emerge from within: only international intervention, she argues, could break the ideological structure that today sustains violence and denial.

In this interview, De Graaf reconstructs the events and denounces the inverse media narrative that followed the attack: the complicity of outlets like Reuters and Sky News, police passivity, and political pressure that, according to her, rewrote the events before dawn. Her experience led her to found Whispering Media, an independent platform born from the conviction that truth must be protected even from those who claim to defend it. A year later, her testimony remains a stark warning: in the digital age, not even images can safeguard the truth when power demands a different story.

“The Hind Rajab Foundation: Justice in the Name of a Child and Against Israeli Impunity”

The Hind Rajab Foundation was born out of horror—and out of the need to act. It takes its name from Hind Rajab, the six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in January 2024 by the Israeli army in Gaza after spending hours trapped among the bodies of her family while pleading for help over the phone. When the ambulance sent to rescue her was bombed, the crime became a symbol of Israeli brutality and of international indifference. Amid despair and institutional silence, a group of jurists and activists decided that the only possible response was legal action. Thus the foundation was created—an organization dedicated to prosecuting those responsible for the genocide in Gaza, both before international tribunals and, above all, within national jurisdictions. Its mission is clear: to break the impunity that has long protected the perpetrators and to restore the rule of law in the face of raw power.

In this interview, Diyab Abu Jahjah, the foundation’s director, explains the strategy and moral vision that drive the Hind Rajab Foundation. Confronted with the slowness and political limits of international law, the foundation focuses on national legal systems in countries where the accused hold dual citizenship—from Europe to Latin America. That approach has already had tangible effects: it has forced governments to acknowledge their jurisdiction, unsettled Israeli ministers, and begun to erode the sense of impunity inside the Israeli military itself. Yet beyond the courts, the foundation stands as an act of global civil resistance—the assertion that even in the face of genocide, truth can be organized and can pursue its perpetrators, in the name of a little girl whose final cry for help still echoes in the world’s conscience.

This is my statement before the Berlin court in my defence against the accusation of racist incitement and Holocaust denial. The case was dismissed, and the author was acquitted of all charges.

My name is Martin Gak, and I am a Jew. Judaism is not only my home, but also the ground upon which I have built my life — from Argentina to the United States, to France, and finally to Germany. Upon this ground I have built my work: my academic interests, my public engagement, my journalism, and ultimately, my way of life.

As a Jew, I decided more than fifteen years ago to settle in Germany — a country that, in my opinion, still carries an enormous moral and political debt.

And as a Jew, I stand before this court to defend myself. As Hannah Arendt said: When one is attacked as a Jew, one must defend oneself as a Jew. It is precisely for this reason that I am here today — dragged before a court to prove to the German state that I am a good Jew. It is simply insane that the German judiciary has hauled me before a court and charged me with incitement to racial hatred (against Jews, I assume) and Holocaust denial, based on a statement that has absolutely nothing to do with either — or, at best, combats both.

At the tender age of fifty, I enter a courtroom for the first time in my life — as a Jew, and not just as a Jew, but as a Jew in a German courtroom. And yes, in my view, both I and the court bring our histories into this encounter.

I should not have to stand trial to prove that I am a good Jew. Consciously or unconsciously, that is exactly what is being demanded of me. I am not an antisemite, not a Holocaust denier, and of course I harbor no hatred toward myself, my family, my friends, or any of my philosophical, cultural, journalistic, or political heroes.

Do you really think it is appropriate to demand that I tell you that I helped found two synagogues (Tarbut and Amijai in Buenos Aires), that in the 1990s I picked up stones from the rubble of the Israeli Embassy and the AMIA in Buenos Aires, that people screamed at me — quoting, incidentally, a phrase from your grandparents’ generation — “Be a patriot, kill a Jew”?

Do you really believe it is decent to ask me, in court, to explain that I am not an antisemite, not an inciter of hatred, and not a Holocaust denier, when the statement has no relation to any of these things?

Among my intellectual and moral models are Emmanuel Levinas, about whom I wrote my doctoral dissertation; Hannah Arendt, who deeply shaped my political thought; Marcel Proust, whom I claim for the Jewish so-called diaspora and who shaped my aesthetic sensibility; Marek Edelman, the second commander of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; as well as Einstein, Spinoza, Mendelssohn, Heine, Stefan Zweig, and Joseph Roth. Hatred? On the contrary — I feel deeply obligated to defend their legacy, their names, and in many cases, their individual and historical acts of heroism.

If I stand before this court, it is for one simple reason: after being attacked as a Jew, using one of the oldest clichés of Zionist antisemitism, I decided to defend myself as a Jew.

The accusations of incitement to hatred and Holocaust denial are simply scandalous and stand in total contradiction to nearly thirty years of work.

Here are the opening words of my article for Politico on antisemitism in Germany:

For many Germans, the country’s post-war reconstruction was as much moral as it was economic and political. The effort to atone for the crimes of World War II — and to stamp out anti-Semitism — has defined the country’s politics for the last 50 years

Or in Deutsche Welle:

From Washington to Budapest, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion — the antisemitic masterpiece that served as the basis for everything from the pogroms in Russia to the mass murders in the Nazi concentration camps in Poland…

So — have I lost my mind and renounced the last thirty years of my intellectual and political engagement? Can anyone believe that? Or is it rather that, in Germany, the words of my tweet in English, regardless of alleged intent, are deemed a crime?

In my opinion, the German state and its institutions were unable to understand or evaluate what was said, given the English in which the tweet was written and the difficulty of interpreting a colloquial exchange between two Jews. Of course, a simple inquiry into who I am would have been enough to establish clearly my relationship to Judaism and the Holocaust.

Let me therefore clarify both points for the court — and perhaps leave a cautionary note for future German authorities who may wish to define what a “good Jew” should be. My statement in English read: “Jews were never victims, etc.” The statement was not an isolated note, but a response — as stated in the indictment — to the claim by the man who reported me, in which he said: “Jews are no longer victims, etc.”

If one takes my statement literally, one will find that it is not only trivially false but also a complete departure from everything I have said over the past thirty years. Is there any way to reconcile that sentence with my defense of Jews, of Jewish diversity, and of the memory of the victims of your camps? Of course — but that requires understanding the language and the words.

Likewise, the complainant’s statement “Jews are no longer victims,” taken literally, is trivially false. Is there a way to interpret that sentence as an attack on Jews? Of course — but again, one must understand the language and the words.

I hope we all agree (and I am sure the man who denounced me agrees as well) that the claim “Jews are no longer victims” is simply false. October 7 is, of course, an expression of that. So let me say clearly: the issue in the statement (and the reply to it) is not whether Jews are being victimized, but whether the identity of Jews is — or is no longer — that of the victim.

The claim to which I responded refers to an old antisemitic trope within Zionism: the Jew as the eternal victim. In fact, there is a Hebrew term for this, often used by Zionists as one of the oldest tropes of Zionist antisemitism — korban nezihi, the eternal victim.

Even today, many in Zionist public discourse refer to Jews of the so-called diaspora as eternal victims. There is a general concept for this denigration of non-Israeli, non-Zionist Jews outside Israel — still an integral part of Zionist discourse — shelilat ha-galut, the negation of the diaspora. This depiction of Jews finds one of its most concise expressions in the work of the father of Hebrew irredentism himself. Let me show you one of the quotes on which my accuser’s claim rests. Here is Theodor Herzl:

“We have known him (the Mauschel — the despicable European Jew, the eternal victim) for a long time, and his mere appearance, let alone approaching him or, God forbid, touching him, is enough to make us nauseous… Who is this Jew anyway? The Jew is a disgusting distortion of the human character, something unspeakably low and repulsive.”

Perhaps the picture becomes clearer if I refer you to Vladimir Jabotinsky, who offered variations on Herzl’s theme:

“The Jew is ugly, sickly, and without dignity… He is trampled upon and easily frightened… He has submitted to subjugation…”

Would any German, eighty years after Auschwitz, have the audacity to utter these words?

Indeed, this is about the Holocaust. The most disturbing expression is katzon latbach — “as sheep to the slaughter.” This is how Israeli society described the victims of the German slaughter. Let me be clear: this is the frame of reference in which the profile in question made the claim about Jews as victims. In other words, the statement “Jews are no longer victims” does not refer to the end of suffering inflicted upon Jews; it refers to a transformation in the moral status of the Jew — an identity no longer despicable, no longer meek, no longer ugly, sickly, downtrodden, easily frightened, dishonest, shabby, or repulsive. Above all, one that no longer accepts submission.

These people debased the ghosts of Auschwitz and its survivors by describing them as meek victims, treating them like sheep that went willingly to the gas chambers — just as Jews under the sword of the Cossacks or burned on the cross. Or in Ukraine, where, incidentally, part of my family was murdered and the rest forced to flee. And hidden in that statement — one a non-Jew cannot see or understand — is also the defamation of Marek Edelman, who defended himself, his community, and the soul of Europe from the Warsaw Ghetto with Molotov cocktails and his bare hands against your army.

The titanic magnitude of Einstein’s intellect that shaped the twentieth century, the monumental brilliance of Maimonides or Spinoza, the intellectual brilliance and courage of my academic mother Agnes Heller, who escaped Nazi bullets in Budapest to become one of the best embodiments of what I aspire to be as a Jew, as a person, and as a European — and the courage and honor of my father, who founded two synagogues in Argentina and rebuilt a third — none of these people who embody the Jew in me deserve to be insulted as “eternal victims.” And certainly none deserve to be dragged from the silence of the grave to silently accept the antisemitic cruelty hidden within Hebrew nationalism.

I recognize, of course, that for a state that has spent most of the past eighty years practicing philosemitism without Jews, it may be impossible to understand both the language and the content of this exchange. But it is the duty of the German state to free itself from its very old and sinister habit of determining who in Germany is a good Jew and who is not.

I acknowledge the difficulty bound to the special responsibility this country bears since the first Jew on the continent was murdered by German bullets. But that special responsibility, in my view, has been completely misunderstood.

What Germany destroyed was not a Zionist project of national exclusivity. What the Germans destroyed was Jewish life in Europe. It is precisely Jewish life in Europe toward which Germany bears a special responsibility. Therefore, if a Jew in Berlin — who voluntarily came here to help rebuild Jewish life in Europe, and particularly in this country — is attacked by antisemites, the state and its institutions must decide whose side they are on. And when antisemitic expressions come from Zionists or apologists for the State of Israel, I demand that the German government fulfill its duty to protect Jewish life in Europe — even from the aggressions of the State of Israel.

In short, my statement was clearly misinterpreted by the German prosecutor’s office. The claim that “Jews were never victims” is a statement about Jewish identity and, in its form and context, represents an unqualified defense of Jews, of Jewish history, and of Jewish life in Europe — as well as of those who perished in German gas chambers and massacres, including members of my own family in Moldova and Ukraine — who were not cowardly cretins or eternal, incurable victims, but Jews.

Now I would like to address one final point. I consider it an act of intimidation that the German state drags me to court over a tweet, with enormous financial — not to mention emotional — costs. Regardless of whether I am found guilty or not, it is a price I must already pay.

It is, of course, inevitable that now — after thirty years of writing and publishing — I am afraid to speak my mind. One can only imagine what it would mean for anyone in this country who ever thought of expressing an opinion about Israel, Palestine, or Jewish history, if a fifty-year-old Jew with some reputation can be brought to court over a tweet.

Wittingly or unwittinglz, no one should ignore the fact that such incidents can only have a chilling effect on freedom of opinion and expression. These are the foundations of democracy; therefore, I urge the court and the institutions to weigh carefully the scope and consequences of their moral ambitions — so that they do not end up destroying what they claim to protect.

In this interview, Hodges offers a broad analysis of the current state of Western defense architecture, the role of NATO, and the geopolitical challenges facing the Atlantic alliance. From the war in Ukraine to the spread of instability in the Middle East and Latin America, the former commander assesses Washington’s strategic decisions, warns of the dangers of a foreign policy without clear objectives, and reflects on the erosion of trust among Western allies. His perspective combines the precision of a soldier with the caution of a strategist who understands the limits—and consequences—of military power.

The former UN official also denounced Israel’s systematic attacks against UNRWA, which he described as the target of a “global witch hunt” aimed at erasing from international discourse the right of return of more than six million Palestinian refugees. Gunness recalled that, despite Israeli claims of alleged links between UNRWA employees and Hamas, independent investigations —including the Colonna Report— found no evidence to support them. According to Gunness, the offensive against UNRWA is part of a broader strategy of institutional dismantling and control over humanitarian access in Gaza, while international bodies such as the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court move forward with cases that could hold Israel accountable for war crimes and genocide.

Throughout the conversation, we both reflect on the future we want for our children —a future in which they can recognize each other’s pain without losing their own story. As an Argentine Jew, I carry with me the memory of exile and trauma, and hearing her speak of her own in Palestine reminds me that, in the end, we share the same wound. This episode is an invitation to see ourselves reflected in one another —to understand that, despite everything, we continue choosing life, bread, and friendship as an act of faith.

Adar Weinreb, an Israeli-American researcher and peace advocate, provides a careful analysis of the Bibas case. His assessment relies on identifiable patterns of military conduct, forensic limitations and the strategic incentives of both Hamas and the Israeli government.

The Bibas family, with two very young children, became icons of the October 7th attacks. Their captivity and the uncertainty surrounding their fate captured national attention, symbolizing for many the brutality of Hamas nd reinforcing the narrative of perpetual victimhood of the Jew. As Weinreb notes, “they just became the symbol of the brutality of October 7th.” This symbolism was powerful enough to unite a traumatized public and reinforce support for a forceful military response.

When the family’s deaths were confirmed, the Israeli government claimed the children had been killed by Hamas militants—specifically, by strangulation. This assertion amplified existing atrocity narratives and was used to underscore the enemy’s inhumanity. Yet, this version of events relied heavily on intelligence assessments rather than transparent forensic evidence. No independent international verification was permitted.

Weinreb challenges this narrative through a probabilistic evaluation of known facts. He points to several countervailing factors: the initial mishandling and misidentification of Shiri Bibas’s remains, suggesting recovery from rubble; the admitted policy of the IDF striking Hamas targets even with intelligence suggesting hostages may be present; and the logical absence of motive for Hamas to kill such high-value captives. Furthermore, Hamas had consistently claimed the family died in an Israeli airstrike—a statement that, while issued by a hostile source, lacked clear strategic benefit to fabricate.

The most plausible explanation, according to Weinreb, is that the family died as a result of an Israeli airstrike. This conclusion is supported by reporting from Israeli publication +972, which cited military whistleblowers confirming a policy of striking targets despite the likely presence of hostages. Israel itself has admitted to killing at least twelve hostages in such operations.

The use of the Bibas family’s story to fuel public backing for the slaughter of Gaza is a stark example of how personal tragedy can be instrumentalized in conflict. The emotional use of their suffering helped legitimize a military campaign that has resulted in immense civilian deaths. If their killing were indeed caused by an Israeli strike, what might look as a devastating irony is indeed the expression of the failure of the israeli state or its disregard for the life of its own citizens. A symbol used to justify a war may have been one of its early, unacknowledged victims.

This case underscores the critical need for independent investigation and verification in war zones, and the moral peril of deploying unconfirmed narratives to mobilize public opinion. The quest for accountability and truth—however uncomfortable—remains essential. Without it, the cycle of violence, fueled by misrepresentation and pain, is destined to continue.

“Two wrongs do not balance each other out,” Burg said, referring to Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israeli civilians and Israel’s ongoing assault on Gaza. “To pretend they do is to abandon the basic values of justice.”

Burg, who was also head of the Jewish Agency and the World Zionist Organization, frames the crisis as a collision between state power and Jewish ethics. He says silence in the face of government policy amounts to complicity. “If I do not stand up and take a position as an individual, I become the indifferent collaborator with murder,” he said.

His critique draws on the legacy of Leibowitz, who argued decades ago that the occupation would corrupt both Israeli politics and Judaism itself. Burg says that prediction has come true. “Behind the rhetoric of security lies an old project,” he said, pointing to the influence of far-right leaders such as Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir. “It is the advance of religious nationalists who seek to replace democracy with a state built on supremacy.”

Burg also questions the role of Zionism. He describes it as “scaffolding,” a temporary structure that enabled the establishment of the state in 1948. But instead of being dismantled, he argues, Zionism hardened into dogma. He points to Israel’s 2018 Nation-State Law, which defines Israel as the nation of the Jews alone, as the moment Jewish supremacy was enshrined in law. “This is not democracy at all but ethnocracy,” Burg said.

In response, he has called for global Jewish action. Burg is proposing that one million Jews — fewer than 10% of the world’s Jewish population — sign a petition demanding international accountability for Israel’s conduct in Gaza. He suggests cases could be brought before the International Court of Justice or the International Criminal Court.

“It’s not a way to go against the state of Israel,” Burg said. “It’s the way to go for our humanistic commitment. If in order to achieve humanity for the innocent people in Gaza goes through stopping Israel, let’s stop Israel.”

Burg argues that such a move would reclaim Judaism’s universalist legacy of justice, compassion and self-critique. He invokes the prophets who confronted kings, and the Jewish communities of exile who built traditions of study and ethics without sovereignty or force.

“What Israel now calls democracy,” Burg said, “is in reality an ethnocracy that denies equality to millions of Palestinians and even many within its own borders.”

Burg’s warning comes as Israel continues its war in Gaza and as divisions deepen at home. For him, the crisis is not only political but existential: whether Judaism will be defined by conscience or by power.

Amro describes an unbearable reality: daily pogroms, settler attacks, arbitrary arrests, hunger, forced displacement. But the most serious thing, he says, is international indifference: “These are not isolated acts. It is a system. Israel violates international law every day and no one stops it. The genocide in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, everything happens in full view of the world.”

For over 30 years, his weekly columns have documented the daily humiliations, the structural violence, and the systematic dispossession of the Palestinian people. He has traveled through every corner of Gaza and the West Bank, reporting what many inside Israel prefer not to see. In this conversation, Levy does not hedge: “At first, I saw an occupation. Then I understood it was apartheid. Today, what’s happening in Gaza is, without a doubt, genocide.”

For Levy, the occupation is not an excess or a mistake — it is the core of the Israeli project. He describes it as a system of total control — territorial, legal, military, economic, and symbolic — over a population with no rights, who are expected to be grateful simply for being allowed to live. “Israel never had any intention of allowing a Palestinian state. What it wants is land without people.” In the West Bank, he denounces a regime with two legal systems: one civil for Jewish settlers, and another military for Palestinians. “That’s apartheid. There’s no other word.”

In Gaza, Levy says, the plan is no longer to control — it’s to destroy. “It’s not just collective punishment. It’s selective but constant extermination. It’s about erasing a people from the map.” He accuses the Israeli military of applying a logic of annihilation against a besieged and starving population. “They bomb homes, hospitals, schools. There is no military objective. The objective is the Palestinian people.”

Levy is devastated by the role of the international community — but not surprised. “If this genocide isn’t stopped, it’s because the world is allowing it.” For him, there are no more excuses, no grey areas: “Silence is complicity.”

And still, he insists on speaking out. From within the system, at the heart of the regime, his voice remains a persistent rupture — a witness who refuses to be complicit.