Sixteen Year Old Ahed Tamimi Offers Israelis a Lesson Worthy of Gandhi
Eventually,
colonised peoples bring to the fore a figure best suited to challenge
the rotten values at the core of the society oppressing them. Ahed is
well qualified for the task.
She
was charged last week with assault and incitement after she slapped two
heavily armed Israeli soldiers as they refused to leave the courtyard
of her family home in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near
Ramallah. Her mother, Nariman, is in detention for filming the incident.
The video quickly went viral.
Source: Phillip Pasmanick via YouTube
Western
commentators have largely denied Ahed the kind of effusive support
offered to democracy protesters in places such as China and Iran.
Nevertheless, this Palestinian schoolgirl – possibly facing a long jail
term for defying her oppressors – has quickly become a social media
icon.
While
Ahed might have been previously unknown to most Israelis, she is a
familiar face to Palestinians and campaigners around the world.
For
years, she and other villagers have held a weekly confrontation with
the Israeli army as it enforces the rule of Jewish settlers over Nabi
Saleh. These settlers have forcibly taken over the village’s lands and
ancient spring, a vital water source for a community that depends on
farming.
Distinctive
for her irrepressible blonde hair and piercing blue eyes, Ahed has been
filmed regularly since she was a small girl confronting soldiers who
tower above her. Such scenes inspired one veteran Israeli peace activist
to anoint her Palestine’s Joan of Arc.
But few Israelis are so enamoured.
Not
only does she defy Israeli stereotypes of a Palestinian, she has struck
a blow against the self-deception of a highly militarised and masculine
culture.
She has also given troubling form to the until-now anonymised Palestinian children Israel accuses of stone-throwing.
Palestinian
villages like Nabi Saleh are regularly invaded by soldiers. Children
are dragged from their beds in the middle of the night, as happened to
Ahed during her arrest last month in retaliation for her slaps. Human
rights groups document how children are routinely beaten and tortured in
detention.
Many
hundreds pass through Israeli jails each year charged with throwing
stones. With conviction rates in Israeli military courts of more than 99
per cent, the guilt and incarceration of such children is a foregone
conclusion.
They may be the lucky ones. Over the past 16 years, Israel’s army has killed on average 11 children a month.
The
video of Ahed, screened repeatedly on Israeli TV, has threatened to
upturn Israel’s self-image as David fighting an Arab Goliath. This
explains the toxic outrage and indignation that has gripped Israel since
the video aired.
Predictably, Israeli politicians were incensed. Naftali Bennett, the education minister, called for Ahed to “end her life in jail”. Culture minister Miri Regev, a former army spokeswoman, said she felt personally “humiliated” and “crushed” by Ahed.
But
more troubling is a media debate that has characterised the soldiers’
failure to beat Ahed in response to her slaps as a “national shame”.
The venerable television host Yaron London expressed astonishment that the soldiers “refrained from using their weapons” against her, wondering whether they “hesitated out of cowardice”.
But far more sinister were the threats from Ben Caspit,
a leading Israeli analyst. In a column in Hebrew, he said Ahed’s
actions made “every Israeli’s blood boil”. He proposed subjecting her to
retribution “in the dark, without witnesses and cameras”, adding that
his own form of revenge would lead to his certain detention.
That
fantasy – of cold-bloodedly violating an incarcerated child – should
have sickened every Israeli. And yet Caspit is still safely ensconced in
his job.
But
aside from exposing the sickness of a society addicted to dehumanising
and oppressing Palestinians, including children, Ahed’s case raises the
troubling question of what kind of resistance Israelis think
Palestinians are permitted.
International
law, at least, is clear. The United Nations has stated that people
under occupation are allowed to use “all available means”, including
armed struggle, to liberate themselves.
But
Ahed, the villagers of Nabi Saleh and many Palestinians like them have
preferred to adopt a different strategy – a confrontational, militant
civil disobedience. Their resistance defies the occupier’s assumption
that it is entitled to lord it over Palestinians.
Their
approach contrasts strongly with the constant compromises and so-called
“security cooperation” accepted by the Palestinian Authority of Mahmoud Abbas.
According to Israeli commentator Gideon Levy,
Ahed’s case demonstrates that Israelis deny Palestinians the right not
only to use rockets, guns, knives or stones, but even to what he
mockingly terms an “uprising of slappings”.
Ahed
and Nabi Saleh have shown that popular unarmed resistance – if it is to
discomfort Israel and the world – cannot afford to be passive or
polite. It must be fearless, antagonistic and disruptive.
Most
of all, it must hold up a mirror to the oppressor. Ahed has exposed the
gun-wielding bully lurking in the soul of too many Israelis. That is a
lesson worthy of Gandhi or Mandela.
*
A version of this article first appeared in the National, Abu Dhabi.
Jonathan Cook
won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include
“Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to
Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine:
Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net.
Featured image is from Middle East Monitor.
The original source of this article is Global Research
Copyright © Jonathan Cook, Global Research, 2018
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