Why Are Greek Media Erasing the Murder of a Greek Priest from the Barghouti Coverage?

Father Germanos, born Georgios Tsibouktzakis in Greece, was a Greek Orthodox monk-priest who moved to Israel in the early 1990s to serve at the St. George Monastery in the Judean Desert. He was widely respected and known for maintaining warm relations with the local community.

On June 12, 2001, while returning to the monastery from Jerusalem, Father Germanos was ambushed and murdered by Palestinian terrorists. The attack was carried out by Fatah-affiliated gunmen, making him one of more than 1,000 Israelis and foreign nationals killed in Palestinian terror attacks during the Second Intifada.

In 2004, arch-terrorist Marwan Barghouti was convicted in a Tel Aviv court and sentenced to five life sentences for orchestrating a series of attacks that killed five civilians, including Father Germanos.

200+ celebrities want Marwan Barghouti freed. But the man they’re calling a “Palestinian Mandela” is a convicted murderer. pic.twitter.com/b9Ak4vJUAy

— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) December 10, 2025

Since 2004, calls for Marwan Barghouti’s release have become a cause célèbre among those willing to overlook terrorism and murder, clinging to the idea that he could somehow emerge as a unifying figure in Palestinian politics or even a partner for peace with Israel.

Support for Barghouti has ebbed and flowed over the past two decades, but the past few months have seen a marked resurgence in articles, commentary, and sympathetic profiles of the Palestinian terror leader. His release was floated in the lead-up to the most recent ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and more recently, 200 artists and celebrities publicly endorsed freeing him.

This renewed wave of attention has not been limited to English-language media. Coverage of Barghouti has been widespread, appearing in news outlets across the world.

The Greek media has been no exception to the renewed global interest in Marwan Barghouti. Over the past few months, several Greek outlets have published pieces spotlighting the imprisoned Palestinian leader.

Yet one striking omission appears across these articles: none of them mention Father Germanos. The last time a mainstream Greek news outlet referenced his murder in connection with Barghouti was in November 2023.

A review of recent Greek-language coverage shows that these articles devote minimal attention to the actual reasons for Barghouti’s imprisonment. Instead, they focus largely on the arguments being advanced for his release, while entirely overlooking Father Germanos and the other victims whose deaths led to Barghouti’s conviction.

These Barghouti-centered pieces have appeared in numerous major publications, including Business Daily, Kathimerini, ERT News, ProtoThema, Naftemporiki, Skai, and Ethnos.

Instead of highlighting Barghouti’s responsibility for the murder of one of their own countrymen, these Greek news outlets dedicated only a few brief paragraphs to Barghouti’s record of terrorism and violence. Their coverage focused largely on the campaign to free him.

By omitting Father Germanos from recent reporting on Marwan Barghouti, Greek-language media organizations are doing a disservice to their audiences. They present Barghouti’s potential release as an issue confined to the Middle East, rather than one that also carries profound resonance for Greece. What is lost in this coverage is the simple truth that this story is not distant at all, and it is tied directly to the murder of a Greek citizen whose name deserves not to be forgotten.

The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.