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Ahed Tamimi

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Ahed Tamimi
عهد التميمي
Tamimi in 2016
Born (2001-01-31) 31 January 2001 (age 23)[1]
Nabi Salih, West Bank
Known forActivism
ParentBassem (father)

Ahed Tamimi (Arabic: عهد التميمي ‘Ahad at-Tamīmī, also Romanized Ahd; born 31 January 2001)[1] is a Palestinian activist from the village of Nabi Salih in the occupied West Bank. She is best known for appearances in images and videos in which she confronts Israeli soldiers. Her supporters consider her a symbol of resistance against Israeli occupation in the West Bank, a courageous advocate for Palestinian autonomy, while her detractors argue her acts are staged performances aimed at discrediting Israel, a claim rejected by her family.

In December 2017, she was detained by Israeli authorities for slapping a soldier in a video that went viral. On 13 February 2018 her trial on twelve charges started at an Israeli military court.[2]

Personal life

Ahed Tamimi was born on 31 January 2001[1] to Bassem and Nariman Tamimi in Nabi Salih, a small village located about 20 kilometers (12.4 mi) northwest of Ramallah in the West Bank. The Tamimi family arrived in the village from Hebron in the 1600s and about 600 of its inhabitants are related by blood or marriage.[3][4]

Tamimi's family, and other residents of their village, have a long history of conflict with nearby Israeli settlements over land rights. The villagers have regularly protested against the takeover by Halamish settlers of a spring, irrigation source and swimming hole known locally as Ein al-Qawsby, which is surrounded by land that, according to Ben Ehrenreich, has belonged for generations to the Tamimi family.[5][6][7] In that dispute the settlers retroactively tried to obtain building permits to develop the site, permits which were denied by Israeli authorities, reportedly because 'the applicants did not prove their rights to the relevant land'. Subsequently, the Israel Antiquities Authority declared the spring an "antiquities site".[8] The Israeli army has regularly responded to protests at Nabi Saleh by repressing them, resorting to several measures, including the use of tear gas, spraying with skunk liquid,[9] water cannons, and occasionally also both rubber bullets and live ammunition, the latter causing the deaths of at least two (some sources state three) villagers, and permanent disabilities for some others.[9] One of the victims of such shootings was Ahed's uncle, Rushdie. The toll of Nabi Saleh residents injured by such actions amounts to hundreds.[6] Scores of Nabi Saleh Palestinians - one estimate puts the figure at 140 -[10] have been jailed and forced to pay out thousands of dollars in bails and fines.[9]

Tamimi belongs to the second generation of Palestinian children who have grown up under conditions of occupation, a point underlined by her father in a letter to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.[11] According to several foreign correspondents, such as Harriet Sherwood of The Guardian and Matthew Gindin of The Forward, Tamimi's siblings—Waed, Mohammed, and Salem—and parents "have known only a life of checkpoints, identity papers, detentions, house demolitions, intimidation, humiliation and violence.’[10][6] As a young girl she went on record as saying she wished to become a lawyer.[10] The Tamimi family considers her a particular target for harassment by Israeli soldiers, and had her relocated to a relative's home in Ramallah for her secondary education, in order to allow her to avoid the perceived danger of having to pass through Israeli checkpoints en route to school from Nabi Saleh.[9] By her father's estimate, the family home, which had been slated for demolition in 2010 just prior to the village's adoption of its weekly protests, has been subjected to some 150 military raids, as of late 2017.[9]

Activism

2012–2016

During 2012—2016 (and since), the Tamimi family were involved in protests and political agitation demonstrating their opposition to the expansion of Jewish settlements and detention of Palestinians.[12] Tamimi shares similar convictions to her family and commentators have been polarised in their assessment of her. She believes documented, organized protests against the Israeli occupation would lead to wider recognition of the Palestinian struggle for autonomy; her viral images and videos have produced a wave of public reactions—‌recognizable not only in Israel and Palestine but internationally as well.[3][13]

In August 2012, when she was 11, Tamimi was photographed attempting to stop the arrest of her mother, an act for which President of the Palestinian National Authority Mahmoud Abbas commended for her courage.[14] By 2012, she had become an internationally recognized figure; as an Israeli soldier arrested her older brother, Tamimi confronted him—‌despite being twice her size—‌while waving a fist—‌a scene which earned her an invitation by then-Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.[13] She gained notoriety once more three years later, while being filmed biting and striking a masked Israeli soldier who was apprehending her brother for throwing stones.[15][16]

In December 2016, Tamimi was denied a visa by the US for a speaking tour titled "No Child Behind Bars/Living Resistance".[17]

2017–2018

On 15 December 2017, Tamimi took part in a demonstration in Nabi Salih opposing the expansion of Israeli settlements near her village. The protest turned violent when around 200 of the demonstrators threw stones at Israeli soldiers; the soldiers organized to quell the unrest and entered the Tamimi house to subdue protesters who, according to the army, continued to throw stones from inside the house.[18] During the protest, 14-year-old cousin Mohammed Fadl al-Tamimi was shot in the face at close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet, severely wounding him.[19] Tamimi, along with her mother and cousin Nour, approached the two soldiers outside the Tamimi home, slapping, kicking, and shoving them—all while being filmed. The civilians appearing in the video are all female.[20] The armed soldiers do not retaliate.[3][18][21]

Her cousin was put in a medically induced coma to remove the rubber bullet from his head, and regained consciousness a few days later.[22] After the video circulated through social media, on 19 December Israeli forces raided the Tamimi house and arrested Ahed; the house was searched and recording materials were seized.[23][24][25] Despite concerns—the use of military court for a minor who may have been singled out for "embarrassing the occupation"—thirteen days later, Tamimi was charged with assault, incitement, and throwing stones; her mother and Nour joined her, having been arrested in relation to the incident.[26] On 13 February 2018, Tamimi appeared before an Israeli military court at Ofer military base on twelve charges to begin a closed-door trial, adjourned until March.[2][27] Ahed's arrest and her filmed confrontation spurred debate over the soldiers' forebearance in Palestinian and Israeli societies. An ad campaign in London called for Tamimi's release. Rallies followed in major cities throughout North America and Europe.[28][29]

Evaluations

To her supporters, she has been described as a "hero" for opposing those who enforce Israeli occupation. Detractors refer to her actions as a "performance" aimed at discrediting Israel,[3][12] a claim scoffed at by her family.[30] Her physical appearance has been commented on: "A great deal of work goes into ‘othering’ Palestinians", journalist Ben Ehrenreich notes, "to casting them as some really recognizable other".[13] Ehrenreich writes, "when suddenly the kid [Tamimi] doesn’t fit into those stereotypes—when she actually looks like a European kid or an American kid—then suddenly all that work of dehumanization can’t function".[13] Critics, including Israeli parliamentarian Michael Oren, accuse Tamimi of acting in "American clothes" to provoke responses from soldiers.[13] Some Palestinian otherwise suggested that the video might have endangered their cause, in that it showed the aggressors as behaving gently. Others have argued that to the contrary it showed that unarmed resistanced can be effective. [31]


Writing for The Guardian in response to events in 2017, Harriet Sherwood recalled her impressions of Tamimi as the 12-year-old girl she interviewed four years earlier, and cited her as proclaiming at that time: "We want to liberate Palestine. We want to live as free people. The soldiers are here to protect the settlers and prevent us reaching our land." Sherwood wrote that her comments seemed 'rehearsed'. Despite the girl's insistence that she was not frightened of the armed soldiers in her area, she was anxious about being photographed near a military watchtower, and, according to her parents, shouted in her sleep or woke up sobbing. Sherwood concluded that Tamimi was emblematic of the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children in the West Bank and Gaza who are raised in a brutal context:

Her story is not just about one child, but a generation – two generations – without hope and security. Tragically and unforgivably, the same bleak prospects could await a third."[10]

Writing for The Forward, Lara Friedman stated that Israel laws of occupation virtually render all resistance illegal, and those who engage is unarmed protest are seen as a threat, since they refuse to submit:

The reason IDF soldiers are regularly in Nabi Saleh, and regularly haunt the Tamimi family — week after week, for nearly the past decade — has nothing to do with the security of Israel. It is because the inhabitants of this village, in existence since long before the establishment of the modern state of Israel, refuse to submit quietly to the Occupation. They refuse to cease protesting against an authority that over time has taken their lands and resources for the benefit of settlements, and has seen soldiers, year after year, arrest, injure and kill village residents and especially Tamimi family members as they engage in unarmed protest.[32]

Israeli reactions

The Israeli Knesset member Oren Hazan, who stated that '(r)estraint is a failed and dangerous policy,'[31] in an interview with the BBC, also declared that, 'If I was there, she would finish in the hospital. For sure. Nobody could stop me. I would kick, kick her face, believe me.'[33] The BBC was subsequently criticized by HonestReporting for having broadcast Hazan’s comment and thereby shaming Israel.[citation needed] The journalist Ben Caspit wrote, 'In the case of the girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras.' The Tamimi family has to learn, the hard way, that such systematic provocations” come at great cost.'[31] The Israeli Minister for EducationNaftali Bennett suggested that both Tamimi and her family be incarcerated for life while Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli Defense Minister in language described as ominously threatening declared that both she and her family would 'not escape from what they deserve.' Tkuma Knesset member Bezalel Smotrich requested that the commander in chief of the Israeli Defense Forces henceforth take steps to ensure that 'every encounter or friction between the enemy and our troops end with a painful and decisive outcome.'[32]

Documentary

A documentary entitled Radiance Of Resistance which featured the then 14-year-old Tamimi and 9-year-old Janna Ayyad was filmed by Jesse Roberts of Rise Up International and Jesse Locke of AMZ Productions.[34][35][36] It was "screened at a number of festivals worldwide in 2017" including at the Respect Human Rights Film Festival which took place in Belfast, Northern Ireland, from 3 to 8 March, where it won the award for the Best Documentary. The Singapore Government's Media Development Authority (IMDA), which the previous year had prohibited showings of Tan Pin Pin's award-winning documentary To Singapore, With Love, claiming it was one-sided,[34] also banned public screenings of Radiance of Resistance, because it has a 'skewed narrative' which could cause 'disharmony' in the country.[37][36] The government's ban was described as censorship.[38]

References

  1. ^ a b c McNeill, Sophie (January 17, 2018). "Israeli court orders detention of Palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi until end of her assault trial". ABC News. Retrieved January 27, 2018.
  2. ^ a b Holmes, Oliver (13 February 2018). "Palestinian teenager Ahed Tamimi's trial begins behind closed doors". The Guardian. Retrieved 13 February 2018.
  3. ^ a b c d Eglash, Ruth (December 19, 2017). "Israelis call her 'Shirley Temper.' Palestinians call her a hero". The Washington Post. Archived from the original on December 28, 2017. Retrieved December 30, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  4. ^ Ahed Tamimi's Family Mocks Israel for Launching Secret Probe to Check if They Aren't Actors, Ha'aretz, 25 Jan 2018
  5. ^ Jihan Abdalla, 'Settlers grab Palestinian water springs: U.N. report,' Reuters 19 March 2012
  6. ^ a b c Matthew Gindin 'Who Is Ahed Tamimi?,' The Forward 4 January 2018:’ The next generation of Palestinians, born to parents born to Occupation, reared on checkpoints and violent protest, anger, and humiliation, relatives maimed or imprisoned or killed and waking from PTSD dreams — how should Israel deal with these children?’
  7. ^ Ben Ehrenreich, 'Is This Where the Third Intifada Will Start?,' New York Times Magazine
  8. ^ Gideon Levy (22 April 2010). "A spa for Samaria. Every Friday, villagers demonstrate against the excavation of the spring". Haaretz. Retrieved 31 March 2011.
  9. ^ a b c d e Jaclynn Ashly, 'Nabi Saleh: 'It's a silent ethnic cleansing',' Al-Jazeera 4 September 2017.
  10. ^ a b c d Sherwood, Harriet (January 2, 2018). "Palestinian 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi is the latest child victim of Israel's occupation". The Guardian. Retrieved January 4, 2018.
  11. ^ Omar Shariff, Ahed Tamimi: Defiant symbol of Palestine Gulf News 5 January 2018:‘My daughter has spent her whole life under the heavy shadow of the Israeli prison — from my lengthy incarcerations throughout her childhood, to the repeated arrests of her mother, brother and friends, to the covert-overt threat implied by your soldiers’ ongoing presence in our lives. So her own arrest was just a matter of time. An inevitable tragedy waiting to happen.’
  12. ^ a b Jabari, Lawahz (September 12, 2015). "West Bank Teen Ahed Tamimi Becomes Poster Child for Palestinians". NBC. Archived from the original on December 28, 2017. Retrieved December 30, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  13. ^ a b c d e Serham, Yasmeen (January 5, 2018). "Who Is Ahed Tamimi". The Atlantic. Retrieved January 7, 2018.
  14. ^ "One picture is worth a thousand stigmas". Haaretz. August 28, 2012. Archived from the original on December 28, 2017. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  15. ^ "West Bank Teen Ahed Tamimi Becomes Poster Child for Palestinians". NBC News. September 12, 2015. Archived from the original on December 28, 2017. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  16. ^ "This Viral Video Of an Israeli Soldier Trying to Arrest a Palestinian Boy Says a lot". The Washington Post. August 31, 2015. Archived from the original on December 28, 2017. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ "Israel arrests Palestinian girl Ahed Tamimi over viral video of soldier slapping". USA Today. Retrieved January 24, 2018.
  18. ^ a b Palestinian girl lauded, arrested for confronting Israeli troops Archived December 30, 2017, at the Wayback Machine, CBS News, December 21, 2017
  19. ^ Soldier-slapping Palestinian girl remanded for another 4 days, Times of Israel, 25 December 2017
  20. ^ "Watch: IDF soldiers provoked but refrain from responding". Ynetnews. December 18, 2017. Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. Retrieved December 30, 2017. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  21. ^ Two Palestinian women in court over Israeli soldier slap video Archived January 1, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, Times of Israel (AFP reprint), December 21, 2017
  22. ^ Cousin filmed slapping soldiers with Ahed Tamimi indicted on assault Archived January 1, 2018, at the Wayback Machine, December 31, 2017, Times of Israel
  23. ^ Yotam Berger (December 28, 2017). "Israel Extends Detention of Palestinian Teen Who Was Filmed Slapping Soldier in Viral Video". Haaretz,. Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: extra punctuation (link)
  24. ^ "Israel extends detention of Ahd al-Tamimi, Palestinian teen activist who 'insulted' IDF soldiers". The New Arab. December 26, 2017. Archived from the original on December 29, 2017. Retrieved December 28, 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  25. ^ "Palestinian teen activist could face prison after slapping Israeli soldier". ABC News. December 20, 2017. Archived from the original on December 21, 2017. Retrieved December 20, 2017. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  26. ^ Beaumont, Peter (January 1, 2018). "Palestinian girl filmed slapping Israeli soldier is charged with assault". The Guardian. Archived from the original on January 1, 2018. Retrieved January 1, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  27. ^ Israel military court trial closed for Palestinian protester, ABC, Karin Laub, 13 Feb 2018
  28. ^ Peled, Danielle (January 1, 2018). "Guerrilla Ad Campaign in London Calls for Release of Soldier-slapping Palestinian Girl Ahed Tamimi". Haaretz. Archived from the original on January 2, 2018. Retrieved January 1, 2018. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  29. ^ "Acts of Resistance and Restraint Defy Easy Definition in the West Bank". The New York Times. December 22, 2017. Archived from the original on December 28, 2017. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  30. ^ "Palestinian girl lauded, arrested for confronting Israeli troops". Retrieved 29 January 2018. In an interview Wednesday, Bassem Tamimi praised his daughter as courageous, scoffing at criticism that she was an attention-seeking provocateur.
  31. ^ a b c David M. Halbfinger, 'Acts of Resistance and Restraint Defy Easy Definition in the West Bank,' New York Times 22 December 2017.
  32. ^ a b Lara Friedman 'Girl’s Viral Video? The Real Scandal Is That Israeli Troops Were There At All,' The Forward 20 December 2017.
  33. ^ Jeremy Bowen, Is a slap an act of terror? BBC News 31 January 2018
  34. ^ a b Nirmal Narayanan, 'Singapore bans film featuring Palestine-Israel conflict in fear of unrest,' International Business Times 4 January 4, 2018.
  35. ^ 'Screening: Radiance of Resistance,' Khalil Sakakini Cultural Center 26 March 2017
  36. ^ a b Cheng, Kenneth (January 2, 2018). "Film screening on Palestinian girls living through conflict cancelled due to 'inflammatory' narrative". Today. Singapore. Archived from the original on January 3, 2018. Retrieved January 3, 2018. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  37. ^ Ungku, Fathin (January 3, 2018). "Singapore bans film focused on indicted Palestinian teen activist". Singapore. Reuters. Retrieved January 3, 2018.
  38. ^ "Singapore bans film featuring Palestinian teen arrested after slapping Israeli soldiers". Middle East Eye. Retrieved 1 February 2018.
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