Nael Barghouti, who has been in Israeli prisons for 44 years, is
set to be released this weekend in a swap for Israeli prisoners.
Hamas' mouthpiece Felesteen says the 67-year old Barghouti is in the Guinness Book of World Records for being the "oldest prisoner in the world," which is obviously not true. But he is listed in Guinness,
in a shameful entry, as the "longest serving political prisoner."
Political prisoner? He's a murderer!
Nael and his two brothers, Omar and Rehbe, murdered Israeli bus driver Mordechai Yekuel in January 1978. Yekuel was helping Arabs travel to their jobs in Israel. Nael and Fakhri were released in the Shalit deal in 2011 but Nael was re-arrested for returning to terrorism, a ruling that was upheld on appeal by Israel's high court (Omar died in an Israeli prison from COVID.)
The Barghouti family is proud of its many members who have murdered Israelis. The
Times of London once interviewed Fakhri who enthusiastically re-enacted the murder of Yekuel.
Calling Nael a "political prisoner" is a lie. He was tried and convicted for the most heinous crime. If he is considered a "political prisoner," then certainly so is Sirhan Sirhan, who assassinated Robert F. Kennedy in 1968 and has been in prison for nearly 56 years.
I don't know how this fake record got past Guinness' fact checkers. Possibly some anti-Israel activists contacted Guinness, knowing that the organization wouldn't look too deeply into the issue beyond that Nael was a Palestinian prisoner in an Israeli jail, and it enshrined the lie. Or it is possible that an anti-Israel activist works at Guinness and considers murdering a bus driver to be merely a political act.
Tell Guinness (
@GWR on X,
Facebook) to stop spreading anti-Israel propaganda. Their response should answer the question of how this entry was published.