Imprisoned Palestinian Activist Ahed Tamimi:
“We should extend our struggles to one another in order to end all of the world’s injustices”

February 19, 2018 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

At 3 am, on December 19, Israeli military forces raided the home of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi, ransacked her home, and arrested her for the “crime” of resisting moves by Israel to make her village unlivable by isolating it, occupying it, cutting off its water, and instituting an ongoing reign of terror. A few days later, her mother, Nariman Tamimi, was also arrested while visiting Ahed at an Israeli police station.

Ahed Tamimi and her family have a long history of speaking out against the expansion of militarized Israeli “settlements.” These “settlements,” combined with walls, checkpoints, military installations, and land seizures are a tightening noose around the Palestinian people. Ahed Tamimi has documented protests against the Israeli occupation on social media with global impact, exposing, embarrassing, and infuriating Israeli authorities and their U.S. backers. In December 2016, she was denied a visa by the U.S. government to enter the country for a speaking tour.

On December 15, 2017, Tamimi took part in a demonstration opposing the expansion of Israeli settlements near her village. During the protest, her 14-year-old cousin Mohammed Fadl al-Tamimi was shot in the face at close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet by the Israeli military. He was put in a medically induced coma to remove the rubber bullet from his head (he later regained consciousness). Later, Ahed Tamimi confronted Israeli soldiers outside her home. A widely circulated video shows her slapping one of the heavily armed Israeli soldiers who was posted provocatively in her own driveway. It was after that video circulated through social media that Israeli forces raided her home and arrested her.

Ahed Tamimi now faces 12 charges in a closed Israeli military court. These military courts are set up to administer a whole different set of laws to oppress Palestinians, including to facilitate the jailing of hundreds of Palestinian children every year. If convicted, she could be sentenced to seven years in prison. Human Rights Watch reported in 2016 that Palestinian children in Israeli jails are brutally beaten and “treated in ways that would terrify and traumatize an adult.”

Israel’s Minister of Culture said of Ahed Tamimi: “She is not a little girl, she is a terrorist. It about time they will understand that people like her have to be in jail and not allowed to incite racism [sic] and subversion against the state of Israel.” Israel’s “Education” Minister has demanded she and others like her “should finish their lives in prison.”

A global movement has been organized to demand Ahed Tamimi’s release from Israeli prison. Former UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories Richard Falk wrote, “Israel’s prosecution of Ahed Tamimi under an Israeli military court for putting up resistance to Israel’s occupation regime epitomizes the unspeakable inhumanity of holding a civilian population captive for generations.” (“Why the Experience of Ahed Tamimi Matters So Much,” by Richard Falk)

Watch this video to see what happened, why, and listen to Ahed Tamini’s inspiring and challenging message to the people of the world.

For background see:

* Michael Slate Interviews International Law Professor Richard Falk on U.S. and Israel: “Iron fist geopolitics where law and morality are completely marginalized.”

* Michael Slate’s interview with historian Ilan Pappé, Author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.

* The special issue of Revolution, The Case of Israel: Bastion of Enlightenment or Enforcer for Imperialism?

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