LAST WEEK, the world caught a glimpse of a different, better future for the peoples of Palestine and Israel.

Marwan Barghouti appeared in a 13-second video clip from his Megiddo prison cell, dressed in a T-shirt and trousers and a gaunt, grey ghost of the man given five life sentences in 2004 following a farcical show-trial.

Visual confirmation of his survival after several physical attacks, bouts of torture and lengthy periods of solitary confinement should have been a cause for rejoicing, not only for the Palestinian people but for Israelis and all who want a just and peaceful resolution of the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Barghouti is internationally recognised as the one potential leader who can unite the Palestinians of Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Although his political origins lie in Fatah, at the political core of the PLO, he was and remains a stern critic of high-level corruption.

An elected member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, he has been a consistent supporter of a “two-state solution” by which a sovereign Palestinian state would co-exist peacefully alongside the state of Israel, each within their agreed and secure borders.

He played an inspirational role at the head of the Second Intifada, which followed Israel’s brutal suppression of the first non-military mass movement against its illegal occupation of Palestinian territories.

Although Israel’s refusal to implement the Oslo Accords and progress towards Palestinian statehood provoked a new round of armed struggle, Barghouti refused to agree with Hamas and other organisations that Israeli civilians are a legitimate target.

In 2002, he was detained after the failure of several assassination attempts, and jailed in 2004 for his alleged part in planning various terrorist attacks. The Inter-parliamentary Union, an international organisation to which most of the world’s elected parliaments belong, condemned the trial as a travesty during which no credible evidence of Barghouti’s alleged role was even presented.

With his wide support among Palestinian people across the political spectrum and his long-time links with progressive and peace-loving Israelis, it could be asked: who better to help negotiate a fair and permanent peace settlement between neighbours?

But there’s the rub. His appearance in prison was filmed at the behest of his most senior visitor, Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, accompanied by his besuited officials and the prison governor.

Ben-Gvir, an open champion of the mass killing of Palestinian civilians — women and children included — had swept into Megiddo to heap a tirade of hatred and humiliation on the head of his helpless captive.

With all the courage and grace he could muster, Ben-Gvir told his physically diminished but still proud adversary: “Whoever messes with the nation of Israel, whoever murders our children and women — we will wipe them out.” When Barghouti tried to respond, he was promptly cut off.

Delighted with his polemical triumph, the Israeli cabinet minister subsequently posted the clip on social media.

Why such determination to abuse and humiliate Barghouti, after all these years?

The reason is borne out by the IDF assault on the ruins of Gaza City today.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s vile regime wants only the peace of the graveyard. Its genocidal intention is to destroy the Palestinians as a people, on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem as much as in Gaza.

Upon the ashes, and with Western support, the criminal regime in Tel Aviv hopes to impose its “one-state” final solution to the Palestinian question.

How much longer will Britain’s Labour government arm and provide other logistical support for Israel’s crimes against humanity? Will they continue to follow the bloody path of Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir or the one proposed by Barghouti, the Nelson Mandela of our age?