Ahed Tamimi – Palestinian girl 17 receives 8 months for slapping armed soldier

Elor Azaria, who murdered an unconscious wounded Palestinian is released also after 8 months

THIS IS ISRAELI JUSTICE 

Ahed Tamimi was yesterday sentenced to 8 months imprisonment for slapping a soldier who entered the grounds of her house. Ahed Tamimi, who has become a heroine of the Palestinian resistance, was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier who entered the grounds of her house. She was perfectly entitled under International Law to resist a soldier from Israel's Occupation.  But of course under the military dictatorship that Palestinians live under Ahed was guilty since Israel pays no heed to international law.

As she was led away to begin her sentence she shouted 'There is no Justice Under Occupation'.  Even during her pre-trial hearings Ahed retained her sense of humour.  Asked by the Military Judge how she hit the solder she said, 'take off these handcuffs and I'll show you.'  I have written extensively on this and you may wish to refer to my previous articles:

“Stone Cold Justice“ - Israeli kidnapping, detention, torture and abuse of Palestinian children - Australian TV Broadcast

Jewish Chronicle Hits a New Low - A Vile Article Attacking 16 year old Ahed Tamimi, 

Ahed Tamimi’s arrest sheds a disturbing light on how children are targeted by Israel, 

Ahed Tamimi's lawyer: Her case is making people see the occupation again, Torture couldn’t happen to a Jewish child - 16 year old Ahed Tamimi’s Detention is Extended by Israel's Military Court

Immediately the video of Ahed standing up to the soldiers went viral, there were calls from the racist Education Minister Naftali Bennett for her to 'finish her life in prison'.

The Israeli army kidnapped Ahed in the middle of the night, video photographer accompanying them, awakening her in her house in the early hours of the morning and thus began a 3 month ordeal in which more charges were added to the bill of indictment.

She was prosecuted in a Military Court which has a 99.74% conviction rate.  In reality she is being tried by the same army that has arrested and brutalised her.  Unlike Israeli children she has no protection, access to parents, social workers etc.  She is, like in Nazi Germany, the untermenschen and is treated accordingly.

Caspit, the 'liberal' Israeli journalist called for 'a price to be exacted' against Ahed, 'in the dark, without witnesses or cameras'  He denies that he meant rape or sexual assault but, as Mandy Rice Davies said, he would wouldn't he?'

 She was subject to what amounted to calls to rape and sexually assault her by prominent Ma’ariv journalist Ben Caspit who wrote in Maariv:

 “in the case of the girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras”

Ahed caught the imagination of people world wide and Israel's hasbara propaganda machine couldn't keep up.  Instead of a Palestinian in traditional Arab garb with a headscarf, she was an engaging white teenager with blonde hair and an endearing smile.  

The kinda kid next door that people can empathise with.  

The idiot of a former Ambassador to the USA and now a government minister, Michael Oren couldn't accept this.  It was a 'fake family' she was deliberately dressed by her parents in western clothes.  Apparently there had been an investigation into the Tamimi family two years ago to establish if they were a real family!

As in South Africa under Apartheid or in the Deep South under Jim Crow the penalty for killing a Palestinian is always less than killing the herrenvolk, a Jew

But as her ordeal dragged on even the Israeli army realised that Israel has suffered massive PR damage.  Their treatment of a young Palestinian girl compared to what an Israeli child would experience is so obviously unjust that you would have to be a particularly thick Zionist to not notice.

That is why Fadi Quoran's article below is correct.  Israel's military prosecutors had originally intended to put Ahed away for years. They dug up false allegations from years ago but the scale of the international campaign has forced the bastards to back off.  In the end holding Ahed was a liability they wanted to be shot of.  All the weapons in the world were to no avail against a young girl's courage.

We should treat this as a victory and Ahed herself as a hero.  As a 17 year old girl under massive & enormous pressure she refused to answer any questions or co-operate in any way.  What a contrast between the Quisling of the Palestinian Authority  Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and Ahed Tamimi.

The case has shone a light on Israel’s Injustice System.  Hence the Israeli military judge decided, against the pleas of the family, that she would be tried in secret as befits a police state.  She and her parents were opposed to this because they wanted the light of publicity to expose these racists.

The Military Court decided that the court hearing should be held in secret not for Ahed's benefit but to save their own embarrassment.  The army were happy to video her arrest as a way of asuaging the racist Right in Israel but they didn't want the publicity that came with her continued detention.

Of course if a closed trial had  really been for her benefit then she would never have been incarcerated in the first place, still less held in pre-trial detention.  The lies just keep pouring off the Zionist PR machine.  

Israel, like all settler states, is essentially stupid.  The cries for revenge against Ahed resounded in Israel but people abroad could not understand the Biblical vengeance being exacted against a female David.  It was as if the story of David and the slingshot was being reversed with Goliath demanding his pound of flesh.

Racist murderer Elor Azaria receives the same sentence as Ahed - Palestinian life is cheap

Contrast her case with Israeli murderer Elor Azaria.  He shot a severely wounded Palestinian in the head whilst he was on the ground.  This supporter of the Jewish Nazi Kach movement was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, which was reduced twice and he was eventually let out after serving little over 8 months.  In other words the same sentence as Ahed who is unlikely to have her sentence cut. 

You can be sure that this murderous psychopath, who was a hero before he went into prison, was treated like a hero when he was inside.  Ahed's treatment by all accounts will be nasty and violent and it is a tribute to her and the hundreds of Palestinian children that they bear it with fortitude. 

Labour MPs Louise Ellman and Ian Austin Who Support Israeli Child Abuse Should be Expelled

A month ago I was expelled from the Labour Party because I called the execrable Blairite MP Louise Ellman a supporter of Israeli child abuse.  The idiot of a barrister, Thomas Ogg, said that I was shaming her.  Indeed I was and I intend to continue doing so.

To be fair to Ellman and I always try to be fair (!) she was joined by another Labour MP who should go, the detestable right-winger Ian Austin MP, the man who heckled Jeremy Corbyn in the debate on the Chilcott Report.  Let us hope that his CLP gets rid of him.

Below is a graphic of the contributions of these two supporters of Palestinian child abuse

Both these racists, Ellman and Austin believe that  Palestinian children are 'incited' to throw stones at the soldiers who occupy their homes and steal their land.  This is of course what every imperialist has argued throughout history.  The oppressed would love their oppressors but for the 'inciters'.  The real disgrace is that these 2 creatures are still members of the Labour Party

I have included a number of different reactions as this is an extremely important case.  The issue of Israel's child prisoners should be highlighted continuously.

This is Israeli justice – slapping a heavily armed soldier is equivalent to killing a wounded Palestinian

21 March 2018 Press Release - for immediate publication   ‘Ahed Tamimi’s forced plea bargain clearly illustrates role of military juvenile court: Protecting the occupation, not Palestinian minors The conviction rate in Israel’s military courts in the West Bank is almost 100% - not because the military prosecution is so efficient, but because Palestinian defendants reluctantly sign plea bargains in which they plead guilty. A new report published yesterday by B’Tselem shows how the measures that Israel has showcased over the last decade as examples of its improved treatment of Palestinian minors in military courts have little to do with the protection of minors and everything to do with public relations. In fact, the function of the military juvenile court boils down to signing off on plea bargains such as the one signed today. This afternoon, the military court at Ofer signed off on plea bargains for ‘Ahed and Nariman Tamimi. The plea bargains include eight months in prison and a fine. A new report published yesterday by B’Tselem, Minors in Jeopardy: Violation of the Rights of Palestinian Minors by Israel’s Military Courts, analyzes the changes that Israel declared over the last decade with regard to the treatment of Palestinian minors in military courts. The report reveals that while useful in Israeli propaganda, these technical changes have done nothing to improve the protection of minors’ rights. In particular, the role of the Military Juvenile Court, whose establishment Israel views as a landmark achievement in the protection of minors’ rights in the military court system, is primarily to sign off on plea bargains already reached between the defense and the prosecution outside the courtroom. Almost all minors sign the plea bargains, having been left little choice by the military courts’ detention policy: most minors are held in custody from the time of their arrest and until they finish serving their sentence. Carrying out an evidentiary trial from within prison is fraught with difficulties, and the defendants know that if convicted, they will be sentenced to prison anyway, as no alternatives exist. Even in the extremely unlikely case that they are acquitted, the time they spent in custody throughout the trial may be just as long, or even longer, than the time they will spend in prison under a plea bargain. ‘Ahed Tamimi’s case is exceptional only in that it garnered special media attention, but it is essentially no different from hundreds of such cases every year. According to figures the Israel Prison Service (IPS) provided to B’Tselem, on 28 February 2018 the IPS had 356 Palestinian minors in custody: 95 of them were serving a prison sentence, 257 were in pre- or post- indictment detention, and four were being held in administrative detention. While Israel claims to hold dear the rights of the Palestinian minors it arrests and puts on trial, the opposite is true: the rights of these minors are routinely and systemically abused from the moment of their arrest.

In Israeli military courts, Palestinian minors always lose

In Israeli civilian courts, detention is always a last resort for a minor. But when it comes to Palestinian minors in Israeli military courts, prison is almost guaranteed.

By Yael Marom

Ahed Tamimi in the Ofer prison military court. December 20, 2017. (Oren Ziv/Activestills)

Israeli authorities have dedicated significant effort in recent years to highlighting the improvements allegedly made in the treatment of Palestinian minors within Israeli military courts in the West Bank.

Among the ostensible achievements are the establishment a juvenile court in the military court system, allowing for the increased involvement of parents in the military justice system, decreasing the length of time a child can be detained before being brought before a judge, and even an abandoned experiment of issuing summonses to Palestinian minors instead of sending an invading force of soldiers to arrest them in their homes in the middle of the night — the common practice today.

A report published by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem on Tuesday argues that these so-called improvements have improved very little. The juvenile military court system system, which uses the tactic of denying bail to pressure over 70 percent of juvenile defendants and their families into accepting plea bargains, has a startling conviction rate that exceeds 95 percent.

The military juvenile courts do not come close to conforming to international standards and conventions signed and implemented by Israel, according to the B’Tselem report. And Israel’s treatment of Palestinian minors contrasts starkly with the treatment Israeli children receive in Israel’s separate, civilian juvenile justice system.

The Israeli army prosecuted 1,046 Palestinian minors in 2014 and 2015, according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. More than a quarter of those indictments were of children 15 and under. Already in the first two months of 2018, the army arrested 274 Palestinian minors who were thrust into the military court system, according to Palestinian human rights group Addameer.

Israeli soldiers arrest a Palestinian youth during a protest against Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Hebron, West Bank, December 7, 2017. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90)

 One of the most disturbing differences between the Israeli civilian and military juvenile justice systems is that in the Israeli system, arrest and pre-conviction detention is supposed to be a last resort; other options are to be exhausted before resorting to imprisonment. In the military system, to which Palestinian children are subjected, pre-conviction detention (denying bail) is the rule; there are virtually no alternatives to detention, and exceptions are extremely rare.

What this means is that Palestinian minor defendants are faced with the following choice: fight the charges and remain in prison for the duration of their trial or sign a plea deal and get a reduced sentence. Considering the time spent in prison awaiting trial, however, even defendants likely to be acquitted still might spend more time behind bars than if they had just signed a plea deal.

One of the testimonies collected by B’Tselem and published in the new report describes what the system looks like from the perspective of a Palestinian teenager:

Abed Sabah, a 15-year-old from the Jalazun refugee camp near Ramallah, was arrested last August. Soldiers broke into his house at 3:00 a.m. without explaining why. He was handcuffed and blindfolded. According to Abed’s testimony, soldiers beat and cursed him during the drive from his home to the military base. He was detained for several hours overnight at the base, handcuffed and tied to a wooden post outside, forbidden from going to the bathroom. The soldiers took him to a police station in the morning. In the interrogation room, he was questioned about stone-throwing and a pipe bomb. The interrogator permitted him to call his parents but not a lawyer. The interrogator never explained Abed’s rights to him, particularly his right to remain silent.

During this first interrogation, the interrogator pressured Abed to confess to the crimes of which he was accused, saying that it would help him. Abed refused. The interrogator wanted Abed to sign two documents in Hebrew, which Abed did not understand and refused to sign. Abed was then moved to the cell for minors at Ofer Prison, and then to the military court there. The entire ordeal was less than 12 hours — but 12 hours during which he was completely alone. There was no one waiting for him in court either — neither his parents nor a lawyer. Abed said he did not know what the purpose of the hearing was, and when the hearing was over, he was sent back to prison.

Two months later he was brought back to court. A lawyer told him he wanted to sign a deal that would include a sentence of two-and-a-half months — exactly the amount of time Abed had already spent in prison. And so it was. Abed’s parents paid a fine of NIS 2,000, and Abed received another five months of probation. At 7:00 p.m. that night, Abed was informed that he was being released. His brother was waiting for him outside of the prison, but the Israeli authorities instead released him at the Ben Sira checkpoint, where no one waiting. Abed said he used a waiting cab driver’s phone to call his brother, who came and took him home.

Israeli soldiers arrest a child during the weekly demonstration in Kfer Qaddum, a West bank village located east of Qalqiliya, on January 25, 2013.

So what about the improvements Israel has made? B’Tselem addresses them one by one.

Did the decision to require bringing minors before a judge sooner actually change the length of time they spend in pre-conviction detention? First of all, remand and bail hearings are not held in the new juvenile military court, so considerations of the child’s wellbeing are rarely raised — the use of detention as a first resort, as opposed to a last resort, has not changed. Secondly, seeing a judge sooner and more frequently has not led to any discernible reduction in the amount of time spent in detention or the ease with which the courts deny bail, according to the report.

Did the change allowing a greater role for defendants’ parents in the juvenile military court system lead to an improvement in advocacy for the child and their best interests? According to B’Tselem, however, the change is almost entirely symbolic, and parental involvement remains minimal. Parents do not have the right to be present during their children’s interrogation, nor does the army actually update parents on the details of their child’s detention.

The biggest problem is that none of the changes have affected the way Palestinian juveniles are arrested, interrogated, and remanded to custody without bail. As long as the system is designed to churn out confessions that lead to plea deals — and the protections for those earlier stages of custody remain unimplemented — reforms to the trial system inside the new juvenile courts will remain virtually moot. Palestinian children rarely stand trial and the merits and circumstances of their confessions are never critically reviewed by a judge.

Yael Marom is Just Vision’s public engagement manager in Israel and a co-editor of Local Call, where a longer version of this article first appeared in Hebrew. Read it here. 

Ahed Tamimi agrees to plea deal, to serve eight months

#Occupation

Ahed Tamimi, 17, became hero to Palestinians after 15 December incident outside her home (AFP)

Thursday 22 March 2018 0:33 UTC

Ahed Tamimi, the teenage Palestinian girl who was filmed kicking and slapping an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank, accepted a plea deal on Wednesday under which she will be sentenced to eight months in prison, her lawyer said.

Tamimi, 17, became a hero to Palestinians after the 15 December incident outside her home in the village of Nabi Saleh was streamed live on Facebook by her mother and went viral.

The soldiers had deployed during a weekly Palestinian protest in the village against Israeli policy on settlements in the West Bank, one of the most heated issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Tamimi was 16 at the time of the offence. Her trial began last month and she faced 12 charges, including aggravated assault.

"No justice under occupation!" Tamimi, handcuffed and shackled, shouted out to reporters at court in the Ofer military prison, near the West Bank city of Ramallah.

Tamimi's attorney Gaby Lasky said that under the deal approved by the court, Tamimi will plead guilty to a reduced charge sheet that includes assault and would be sentenced to eight months in jail and pay a fine of 5,000 shekels (about $1,430). The Israeli military confirmed the details of the deal.

It broke the stereotyped image of the Palestinian in the international community

- Bassem Tamimi, Ahed's father

Lasky said the jail term included the time Tamimi has spent in detention since her arrest in December.

Tamimi's family are veterans of protests against an Israeli settlement near their home. An Israeli watchtower stands at the entrance to the village and there are often soldiers in the area. Her mother, Nariman, and a cousin were also arrested. Both have accepted plea bargains, a family lawyer said.

"When the European people see my daughter, blonde and blue-eyed, they are shaken, because they saw their children in front of them. It broke the stereotyped image of the Palestinian in the international community," Tamimi's father, Bassem Tamimi told Reuters.

The images of Tamimi striking the soldier had also made an impact on Israelis, who debated whether the officer should have hit back. The army said the soldier “acted professionally” by showing restraint but right-wing politicians described his behavior as humiliating.

"The honour of Israel's army cannot be trampled" Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev said on her Facebook page after the incident. "We cannot have a situation in which soldiers are humiliated and hit and they do not act at that moment and arrest those who hurt them."

The Israeli army said in a statement after the sentence that it "will continue operating in order to preserve the security and public order in (the West Bank) and enforce the law as it pertains to anyone who harms (Israeli) soldiers and incites violence."

Ahed in court

Tamimi's trial

Tamimi's trial began on 13 February behind closed doors at the Israeli military court in the West Bank.

Lasky appealed to have the trial opened, but was rejected.

The court ordered the trial closed because Ahed was being tried as a minor, as is usual in such cases.

"When they decided to keep her trial behind closed doors, we knew that we were not going to get a fair trial," 

Lasky told AFP in describing her reasons for seeking a plea bargain.

The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has criticised Israeli authorities' actions in the case, while the European Union has expressed concern over Israel's detention of minors, including Ahed Tamimi.

When they decided to keep her trial behind closed doors, we knew that we were not going to get a fair trial

Gaby Lasky, Tamimi's father

"Ahed will be home in a few months, but Israel is putting this child behind bars for eight months for calling for protests and slapping a soldier, after threatening her with years in jail," 

Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.

Tamimi's family says the 15 December incident that led to the arrests occurred in the yard of their home in Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah in the West Bank.

The Israeli military said the soldiers were in the area to prevent Palestinians from throwing stones at Israeli motorists.

The video shows the cousins approaching two soldiers and telling them to leave before shoving, kicking and slapping them.

The scuffle took place amid clashes and protests against US President Donald Trump's controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.

Palestinians want the West Bank for a future state, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Most countries consider Israeli settlements built on territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war to be illegal.

Israel disputes that its settlements are illegal and says their future should be determined in peace talks with the Palestinians. Negotiations collapsed in 2014 and efforts by the White House to restart them have showed little progress.

Tamimi's case drew global attention. Amnesty International called her the "Rosa Parks of Palestine", and the small courtroom was often packed with journalists, diplomats and international observers during hearings.

A group of American cultural figures, including actors Danny Glover and Rosario Dawson and novelist Alice Walker, signed a petition calling for her release and comparing her case to those of "the children of immigrants and communities of color who face police brutality in the United States".

Three reasons why Israel backed down, and Ahed Tamimi will walk free

The Israeli military was forced to give in and drop 8 of the charges against Ahed as part of a plea bargain, in which Ahed recognized in court the fact that she slapped the soldier and called for protests. In return, Ahed will get the minimum sentence of 8 months instead of spending at least 3 years in prison based on what the military prosecutor was initially seeking. Lawyers at Ofer Military Court told us we would be lucky if they offered a 2 year plea bargain. But now, Ahed will be out in July — early enough to go to her first year in college. For the next 4 months in prison, Ahed will focus on her studies and take her final year exams. Ahed’s mother, Nariman, will also be released at the same time.

The fact that a child will be jailed for 8 months for slapping a soldier whose troops just shot her 15 year old cousin in the face is extreme, but in the context of the 99% conviction rate in the Israeli military court system and right-wing incitement against Ahed, this compromise by the Israeli military shows they have decided to back down in the face of growing pressure to release Ahed. In fact, they were begging Ahed’s lawyer, Gaby Lasky, to accept the plea bargain. 

Below are the 3 main reasons why the Israeli military was forced to back down, and give Ahed the minimum possible sentence:

(1) Ahed refused to be coerced so there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her

Israel subjected Ahed Tamimi to intense military interrogations led by a member of Israel’s military intelligence. The interrogation tactics were meant to coerce her into admitting guilt on the 12 charges brought against her. Detained children, who are often beaten, disoriented, and afraid, end up saying anything the interrogator wants them to — but Ahed courageously maintained her right to remain silent throughout the entire interrogation.

Unable to break Ahed, the Israeli military arrested 10 other Palestinians from Nabi Saleh, 8 of them children. These children also remained steadfast and refused to allow the military to coerce them into giving false testimony to indict Ahed.

Hence, the prosecutor did not have enough evidence to indict Ahed, which made it difficult to complete here trial, especially while it was garnering significant international attention.

(2) Ahed’s case created massive global uproar from citizens to diplomats: millions around the world watched in shock as a 16 year old girl was terrorized, and Israel failed to spin the story.

After a massive right-wing Israeli campaign calling for the arrest, and sometimes even murder, of Ahed, which was followed by her arrest, Ahed quickly became a symbol of Palestinian children. 

Dozens of media networks flocked to cover her story, and in so doing shed a spotlight on the detention of Palestinian children in Israeli military courts. Over 1.75 million people around the world took action with Avaaz and demanded that Ahed and Palestinian children be released. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch joined her campaign — and news networks from the BBC to Xinhua, and from CNN to Al Jazeera reported her story.

In an effort to spin the story in Israel’s favor, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, claimed that the ‘Tamimi family were actors’, which journalists did not buy. Oren further claimed that the Knesset had a committee investigating the “authenticity” of the family, which was quietly ridiculed in diplomatic circles as a sign of Israel’s paranoia and its inability to humanize Palestinians.

In a last ditch effort to defame the Tamimi family, 15 year old Mohammad Tamimi, whose skull was shattered when a soldier shot him in his face, was arrested. Ahed slapped the soldier because she heard her cousin Mohammad was shot and in critical condition — and that story intensified global support for her case. The Israeli military interrogated Mohammad and successfully coerced him into saying he got his head injury (a third of his skull was missing and he needed surgery to replace it) from falling off of a bicycle. Major General Yoav Mordecai posted Mohammad’s “confession” on his Facebook page. However, the Tamimi family quickly released x-rays, footage, and hospital records that proved without a doubt that Mohammad was shot, forcing the military to retract.

Mohammad Tamimi — skull shattered by a bullet fired from an Israeli soldier during protests in Nabi Saleh. His injury led Ahed to confront, and slap, the soldiers firing at kids from her home’s front porch.

Diplomatically, many nations that were already worried about the ill-treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military prisons spoke up. The EU said it was “deeply concerned” about the arrest of minors. Diplomats from around the world were mobilised to watch Ahed’s hearing, with representatives from Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, and many others attending her trial.

(3) Ahed’s arrest was supposed to deter Palestinian youth but instead it inspired them to organise

The Israeli military hoped that the arrest of Ahed would deter the youth of Nabi Saleh (Ahed’s village) and Palestinians across the region from protesting. What happened was the opposite: The youth were inspired by Ahed’s agency, and protests in Nabi Saleh and elsewhere became larger and more intense.

Youth from the villages around Nabi Saleh also joined its protests. And Palestinian students began the process of organising a #March_for_our_freedom. Fearing further upheaval, and unwilling to make Ahed a bigger hero, the Israeli military was forced to give in and drop 8 of the charges against Ahed. Instead of spending over 3 years in prison based on what they had initially pursued, she will now be out in July — early enough to go to her first year in college. The only thing she was booked for were the things in the video — slapping a soldier and calling for protests. They dropped the charge of inciting to bombings and stabbings for her and her mother, and the charge of stone throwing. For the next 4 months in prison, Ahed will focus on her studies and take her final year exam.

It is essential that we tell Ahed’s story as it is, one of steadfastness in prison and a failure by the military to break her. In court, Ahed said: “There is no justice under occupation.” She’s right, and that’s why this plea deal, as unfair as it is, was the best she could hope for and the biggest possible compromise the Israeli military, under pressure, could give. There are 356 children, all like Ahed, still in military confinement. Every year over 750 children are arrested. Let’s continue to take action until they are all free.

Check out the HUGE campaign to free Ahed and all Palestinian children here: 

Israel arrests severely injured Mohammed Tamimi (15) in order to force him to back up their lies

How Low Can They Go?

 Is it possible for the Israeli State and Army to Sink Any Lower than kidnapping an injured child?

Muhammad Fadel Tamimi, 15, with his mother, at his home in the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Salah on 13 January. A month earlier an Israeli soldier shot at close range with a rubber-coated metal bullet causing serious head injuries.
https://youtu.be/13sj8tTAkVk

 Heidi LevineSipa Press

It is a story which is almost unbelievable, not least because of the stupidity of the Israeli army and the Head of the Occupation, General Yoav Mordechai. 

Mohammed Tamimi was shot at point-blank range with a rubber bullet at the end of the December.  The would be murderers were the Israeli army.  It was this incident which provoked his cousin, Ahed Tamimi to slap the Israeli soldiers who invaded the grounds of her house.  One of these soldiers was believed to be the man who nearly killed her cousin.

Fast forward to Monday of this week and a posse of Israeli soldiers raids Nabi Saleh and arrest 10 people, of whom 6 are children including Mohammad Tamimi.

Despite having been severely injured and awaiting surgery, these animals roused Mohammad from his bed and kidnapped him.  Then in accordance with their normal racist routines, Mohammad was interrogated without, of course a lawyer or parent present.   A practice which is never extended to Jewish children but which the media in this country does not, of course report.

What happened next is surreal.  Frightened, fearful and no doubt anxious as to when he was going home and anxious about the fact that he was still very ill, Mohammad was ‘persuaded’ to agree to the pathetic lie that was put to him that he wasn’t shot but fell off his bike!  The fact that a bullet was taken from his skull and that there are X-ray photographs to prove it, was ignored.  This pathetic Zio story has been debunked by Sarit Michaeli of Israel’s human rights group Btselem who rightly called it Orwellian. 

The idea that Mohammad fell off his bike is easily disprovable with medical evidence.  When he was released Mohammad confirmed that the only reason he agreed with the Zionist version was out of fear.  However  the reason why Israel’s soldiers engaged in this macabre game was to ‘prove’ to its far-Right constituency that all the reasons given for his cousin Ahed’s slapping of a soldier were a lie.  And of course Israel’s media, bar Ha’aretz, played along with this.

The fact that Israel refuses to record its interrogations of children or indeed adult prisoners gives the lie to the allegations made by Israeli army commander, General Mordechai.

It is also clear that the campaign to free Ahed Tamimi has severely embarrassed the Zionist regime in Tel Aviv.  Despite the attempts to dismiss her as a good actor, as a girl who is older than her ‘official’ age or not part of a proper family, the fact is that the campaign has achieved massive support.

The reaction of the Israeli army is an example of the observation that military might and stupidity exist in inverse ratio to each other.

However you will be pleased to hear that in the case of a 17 year old Jewish settler living in Geulat Zion that matters were entirely different.  For being locked up for one night and being placed in handcuffs he was awarded 6,500 shekels (nearly £2,000).  Ahed Tamimi and indeed most Palestinian children are handcuffed and indeed shackled.

When Ahed was brought before the military judge and asked how she struck the soldier she replied that if they took handcuffs of she would show them!

It is nice to know that in the Jewish state that Jewish children are given such consideration and preference.  Almost heart warming.

Tony Greenstein

Israel lies that boy shot in head “fell off bike”

Ali Abunimah Rights and Accountability 27 February 2018

Muhammad Fadel Tamimi, 15, with his mother, at his home in the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Salah on 13 January. A month earlier an Israeli soldier shot at close range with a rubber-coated metal bullet causing serious head injuries.

One of the classic warning signs of abuse is when a child shows a pattern of injuries, but the abuser forces the victim to go along with cover stories claiming the victim simply had a series of unfortunate accidents.

Israel, as a serial and systematic abuser, is once again demonstrating how shameless it is in its attempts to cover up its horrifying mistreatment of Palestinian children and to blame child victims for its own crimes.

On 15 December, in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, an Israeli occupation soldier shot Muhammad Fadel Tamimi with a rubber-coated metal bullet at close range, causing devastating head injuries.

Photos of the 15-year-old have circulated around the world showing the effect of having one-third of his skull removed during life-saving surgery. While he awaits restorative surgery he remains very vulnerable, and faces a long recovery.

His case has been all the more embarrassing to Israel because he is the cousin of Ahed Tamimi, the 17-year-old who has been in prison for two months and is being subjected to a military trial in an Israeli kangaroo court for slapping and shoving two heavily armed occupation soldiers shortly after Muhammad was shot.

Both are members of the Tamimi family, against which Israeli leaders have vowed collective punishment and revenge because of their prominent role in the nonviolent resistance campaign to Israel’s theft of Nabi Saleh’s land for colonial settlements.

Night raid

In the predawn hours of Monday, Israeli occupation forces raided Nabi Saleh and arrested 10 people, including six children. One of them was Muhammad Fadel Tamimi.

They took him away for interrogation and released him hours later leaving observers once again stunned at Israel’s callousness and cruelty.

It was obviously a carefully planned operation, as the newspaper Haaretz noted that the detention of the severely injured child “was approved by a military physician.”

Yet all became clear Monday night, when Yoav Mordechai, the general who runs COGAT, the bureaucratic arm of Israel’s military occupation, posted on Facebook what he clearly thought would be the revelation to absolve Israel of its crimes against Muhammad.

And it fit the classic pattern of the serial abuser. According to Mordechai, the boy had not been shot in the head after all, but had merely fallen off his bike.

“What is the truth regarding Muhammad Tamimi?” Mordechai wrote. “Wonder of wonders! Today the boy himself confessed in front of the police and in front of COGAT representatives that in December his skull was injured when he was riding his bicycle and fell off it and hit his head on the handlebars.”

Mordechai followed this up by claiming that the “culture of lies and incitement continues among the children and adults of the Tamimi family.”

His post was accompanied with a graphic with the words “fake news” emblazoned across it in Arabic.

Mordechai, it should be noted, works closely with the Palestinian Authority – collaboration between occupier and occupied that is actively promoted by UN officials.

“Orwellian”

Human rights defenders and journalists were quick to debunk Mordechai’s outlandish story.

Sarit Michaeli of the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem described Mordechai’s claim that the boy merely “fell off his bike” as Orwellian.

What was stunning, she said is “not how big a lie it is” but that “such easily debunked lies show the only target audience is [the] Israeli right.”

Along with this denunciation, Michaeli tweeted copies of a medical report from the hospital that had performed the emergency “bullet removal” surgery from Muhammad Tamimi’s head.

Haaretz noted that “the version of events described by Mordechai does not coincide [with] eyewitness accounts obtained by Haaretz, according to which the day Tamimi was injured, IDF [Israeli army] forces were firing at Palestinians who were throwing stones, with the aim of dispersing them.”

“Tamimi, witnesses said, was standing on a ladder behind a wall and was hit in the head the moment he raised it above the ledge,” the newspaper added.

It also published photos of the bullet removed in the surgery and of a CT scan showing it lodged inside Muhammad’s head.

The boy himself gave a similar account in this video published by Haaretz in early January:

And Defense for Children International-Palestine reported days after the shooting, citing an eyewitness, that “Israeli forces shot Muhammad Tamimi, 15, with a rubber-coated metal bullet shortly after clashes had ended.”

“According to the eyewitness, Israeli forces appeared to have exited the area around 4 pm when an Israeli soldier shot Muhammad in the face with a rubber-coated metal bullet at close range,” the group stated.

“He [Muhammad] was laying on the ground. His face and clothes were covered in blood,” the eyewitness said.

The doctor who treated Muhammad told Defense for Children International-Palestine that the boy “underwent two operations to remove the rubber-coated metal bullet, which lodged in the back of his skull and caused severe bleeding in his brain.”

Coercing a frightened boy

A journalist for the French news agency AFP reported on Tuesday that Muhammad Tamimi “confirmed,” that following his nighttime arrest he told the army he had had a bike accident, “but said he lied to avoid jail for protesting.”

Gaby Lasky, a lawyer who defends members of the Tamimi family, accused COGAT head Mordechai of “cynically abusing” a “miserable, made-to-order” investigation that induced “a frightened child [to] lie during the interrogation.”

Lasky confirmed to The Electronic Intifada that Muhammad was interrogated without a lawyer or a parent present, one of many abusive practices Israel uses against detained Palestinian children to coerce confessions.

B’Tselem’s Michaeli also quipped that Muhammad Tamimi is “the only Palestinian boy in history who denied throwing stones and was believed [by] the Israeli army.”

Israeli conspiracy theories

All this evidence will not convince the Israeli army, nor Israel’s most fanatical supporters; the goal of sending soldiers to arrest a badly injured child in the middle of the night and then having a general post his “confession” on Facebook is not to seek the truth but to sow doubt.

And this is where the pattern comes in: Israel’s obfuscation, lies and denials are legion, but it suffices to point to just a few.

B’Tselem’s Michaeli recalled another instance of Israel’s Orwellian lies: Beitunia, 2014.

This is a reference to the 2014 Nakba Day killings of 17-year-old Nadim Nuwara and 16-year-old Muhammad Abu al-Thahir.

Both were shot dead in cold blood the same day and in circumstances where they posed no conceivable threat to anyone – killings that were caught on video.

After the shootings, Israel’s spin doctors were out spreading their Orwellian lies.

Michael Oren, now a deputy minister in the Israeli government, went on CNN to claim that the two boys shot dead on 15 May 2014 might not even be dead.

In order to cast doubt, he cited the videotaped shooting of 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura in Gaza in 2000 at the outset of the second intifada, which generated worldwide outrage.

Oren recycled the far-right conspiracy theory that the shooting had been staged, even questioning whether the child “was shot at all.”

Israel also first denied live ammunition had been used in the Nakba Day killings but when the evidence could not be buried it finally indicted one of its occupation soldiers, Ben Dery, with manslaughter for killing Nuwara.

Though Dery’s indictment was a rare instance of an Israeli having to answer for harming a Palestinian, the soldier has been offered a plea which will reportedly get him a “light punishment.”

No one has been charged in the killing of Abu al-Thahir.

More recently, Oren has promoted the conspiracy theory that the Tamimis are not a real family but rather a group of “blond, blue-eyed and light-skinned” actors hired to “make Israel look bad.”

And it’s hardly surprising to see that Oren quickly took to Twitter to promote Mordechai’s claim that Muhammad Tamimi just fell off his bike:

Peter Lerner, a former Israeli military spokesperson, also promoted the claim as an example of “Pallywood” – a term anti-Palestinian conspiracy theorists use to describe what they imagine is an an organized Palestinian effort to fake human rights abuses to embarrass Israel:

Israel won’t listen to words

B’Tselem’s Michaeli made an astute observation that Mordechai’s fabrications are intended solely for the consumption of the Israeli right.

That’s an indication that Israel understands that it is badly losing support among international audiences who care about human rights.

To sustain the level of oppression that Palestinians face, Israel needs to constantly convince its “home front” that it is in the right, that its soldiers are doing good and that Palestinians are uncivilized beasts who never really suffer, but only lie and fabricate to harm the image of Israel’s “most moral army in the world.”

And on the world stage, Israel is ever more reliant on alliances with a global far-right that is eager to lap up such lies, just as it shares Israel’s rampant Islamophobia, racism and xenophobia.

The message for anyone who cares about human rights is very clear: an Israel this unhinged and brazen doesn’t care about what human rights groups say in their meticulous reports, and is not bothered by the timid bleatings of European Union and UN officials.

Israel only cares what people do, so the answer to this outrage must be more efforts to isolate this regime and make it pay a price through boycotts, divestment and sanctions.

Israeli Cops Ordered to Pay 17-year-old Settler for Jailing Him Overnight

The teen, who spent a night behind bars after he was detained at a West Bank outpost that had been closed off by the military, will receive $1,869 in compensation

The illegal West Bank outpost of Geulat Zion where the teen in question was detained after reportedly trespassing on a closed-off military area.\ Moti Milrod

Yotam Berger

  Feb 28, 2018 1:42 AM

The Judea and Samaria Police were ordered to pay 6,500 shekels ($1,869) to a 17-year-old settler who was kept in a lockup overnight and brought to court in handcuffs unnecessarily.

The Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court criticized the police for letting the youth sleep in the police lock-up and noted that bringing the youth to court in handcuffs was unlawful.

The teenager was arrested in June 2016 at the Geulat Zion outpost, considered to be one of the most extreme in the West Bank, on grounds he had violated a military order closing off the area. Geulat Zion is not a permanent community, as the authorities periodically remove the small groups of settlers who set up camp on the hill. The outpost is now located near the site where the new settlement of Amihai is being built for the families evacuated from Amona last year.

Police planned to release the youth with restrictions the day after his arrest, and left him to sleep in the jail cell. Police also planned to ask the court to keep him away from Geulat Zion for 180 days. The following day, he was brought to the Jerusalem Magistrate’s Court in handcuffs.

Court registrar Judge Ofir Yehezkel wrote in his ruling that the arrest itself was legal. “The dispute is over whether it was possible to release the plaintiff when his questioning was over at night, or whether the defendant acted properly by keeping him detained. Regarding this dispute, I accept the plaintiff’s position.”

The court explained, “Based on case law, it is not proper to delay the release of a detainee that the police believe should be released with conditions, simply because the conditions at issue are the type that must be determined by a judge. In such cases, imposing the restrictions that are within the authority of a police officer is sufficient and after the release, if needed, there can be a request to impose more stringent conditions that will be discussed before a judge.” With regard to the police intention to ask that the youth stay away from the area for half a year, the court said this wasn’t sufficient grounds for leaving him in the cell.

The judge also expressed annoyance that the officer who made the decision to keep the youth overnight hadn’t even testified in court. “There was reason to expect him to appear to give testimony, to explain his considerations and be questioned about them,” the judge wrote.

The court was also critical of the decision to bring the youth to court in handcuffs. “People who constitute part of the general public circulate in the halls of the courthouse and are liable to see the prisoner while he is handcuffed,” Yehezkel wrote. “The courthouse is defined as a public place in various pieces of legislation. I believe that the court should also be seen as a public place for the purposes of the Youth Law and the Detention Law, and police procedures cannot contradict this.

“Moreover, the police’s own regulations state that in general one does not restrain minors while in detention unless they are acting wildly,” he added. As a result, the judge ordered police to pay the youth 6,500 shekels.

The youth’s attorney, Menashe Yado of the right-wing legal aid organization Honenu, said he hoped the ruling “will penetrate and lead to an internalization of norms of fair police conduct toward Jewish youths in Judea and Samaria.” There was no comment from the police

How the Israeli Army Got a Teen Who Was Shot in the Head to Say He Fell Off a Bike

COGAT chief Yoav Mordechai wants us to believe that friends, relatives, doctors and left-wing activists cooked up a huge lie about Mohammed Tamimi. But he was just telling investigators what they wanted to hear

Amira Hass

Ha’aretz, Feb 27, 2018 8:03 PM

Mohammed Tamimi, at home in Nabi Saleh, January 2018.\ Alex Levac

 Maj. Gen. Yoav Mordechai, the coordinator of government activities in the territories, expects us to believe that tens of Palestinians and a few Israelis conspired to concoct a huge lie in order to slander the Israel Defense Forces.

According to him, the liar is not only 15-year-old Mohammed Tamimi. The liars are also his parents, members of his extended family in the village of Nabi Saleh, and friends – including Israeli leftist activist Jonathan Pollak. The latter were with Tamimi when he climbed a ladder on December 15 to see what the soldiers, ensconced in an empty house in his village, were up to. The teen was shot in the head and fell to the ground in a puddle of his own blood.

In his Facebook post on Tuesday, Mordechai claims, in effect, that the Palestinians are stupid because so many of them collaborated in creating a lie that is so very easy to expose. If indeed there was a lie.

Maj. Gen. Mordechai. Claims, in effect, that the Palestinians are stupid because so many of them collaborated in creating a lie that is so very easy to expose. IDF Spokesman's Office

He is relying on things Tamimi told his police interrogators on Monday, just hours after a large military force burst into Nabi Saleh and into his home, before dawn, rousing him from his sleep and arresting him. Five other minors and five adults were arrested along with him, under similar conditions.

Still in the dark, half asleep and shaken, surrounded by rifles pointing at him, with air reeking of tear gas and the disgusting smell of the skunk-water sprayed by the troops – Mohammed Tamimi was taken in for interrogation. It is easy to guess what went through the mind of the wounded boy, who is slated to undergo yet another operation to reconstruct his skull in the coming weeks.

He must have been thinking: Perhaps I'll be held under arrest for many weeks. Perhaps my medical condition will get worse. Perhaps I won't even be released before going into surgery.

Tamimi told the investigators and representatives of the Civil Administration Coordination and Liaison Office, who for some reason made a point of being present, what they wanted to hear: that he was injured when he fell off his bike.

The security forces carry out hundreds of arrests and interrogations every week in Jerusalem and the West Bank. No one disputes the fact that one of their aims is to expose those who plan or carry out armed attacks. A second aim is to gather information, even of the most innocent sort, about as many people as possible and about social and political activities. Very banal, sometimes even embarrassing, information is extracted – even years later and under unexpected circumstances: when a person travels abroad, or when someone applies for an entry permit into Israel or for a residency permit for non-Palestinian spouse.

A third aim (though not necessarily the third most important) is to quash popular activity against the occupation, of which the village of Nabi Saleh has become a symbol. Palestinians are forbidden to demonstrate their resistance to the occupation, in any manner.

One of the ways of deterring individuals who may be potential participants in popular struggles is to wreak serious harm on people who are already taking part in them – by means ranging from injuring to killing; to detention under conditions harsher than those encountered by graft suspect Nir Hefetz; sleep deprivation; painful handcuffing; humiliating interrogations; ridiculous accusations like those based on "evidence" like empty tear-gas cannisters or visits to book exhibitions; administrative detentions (arrest without charges being filed); arrest until the conclusion of proceedings; and exorbitant fines.

Mass arrests, interrogations and collecting of information – these are an integral part of the control Israel wields over the Palestinians. Many of the arrests are another means whereby Israel attempts, systematically, to undermine and unravel the Palestinian social fabric in order to weaken its ability to withstand and defy the occupation.

When the detainees are minors, their jailers have a greater ability – with the help of a few slaps, painful positions during questioning and psychological pressure – to extract false incriminations and exaggerated, boastful descriptions of events from them. It is easy to manipulate and break them.

Among themselves the Palestinians are debating participation of minors in protest activities against the occupation. The ethos of the struggle is dear to them, and the loathing of the occupation runs too deep for this debate to be conducted in public, but the high price that is being paid by minors and their families is clear to everyone.

It is too early to say if a post like Yoav Mordechai’s will encourage the debate and whether it will be taken into the public domain or strengthen the position of those who say that Israel stops at nothing in order to oppress and therefore youngsters should not be denied their right to revolt.

Israeli forces detain 10 members of Tamimi family, including teenager previously shot in the face

In the middle of the night on Monday, around 3 a.m., the Israeli military raided the central occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh in full force, a common occurrence for the village’s internationally-recognized residents, the Tamimi family, who have seen several family members — a large portion of them minors — arrested from the village in the past few months.

On Monday alone, Israeli forces detained 10 members of the extended Tamimi family, including five minors between the ages of 14-17, a 19-year-old, and the rest between the rest between 21 and 29 years of age, according to the Palestinian Prisoner’s Society.

Among the detainees was 15-year-old Muhammad Tamimi, who is scheduled to have reconstructive surgery on his skull on March 5th. Muhammad was released later Monday afternoon.

Israeli soldiers had shot Muhammad in the face with a rubber-coated steel bullet in December, during demonstrations in Nabi Saleh against US President Donald Trump’s decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Moments after Muhammad was shot, his then 16-year-old cousin Ahed learned of his injury as Israeli soldiers continued to surround the village, including her family home.

It was then that Ahed was filmed kicking and slapping an armed Israeli soldier who had encroached on her family’s property — an incident she would be detained for days later, along with her mother and cousin.

Ahed, who spent her 17th birthday in Israeli prison, is now being prosecuted behind closed doors in an Israeli military court that has a conviction rate of over 99 percent.

After spending days in a coma and undergoing several life-saving surgeries, Muhammad — who has been injured by Israeli forces before, and was previously detained when he was 13 — was released back home to Nabi Saleh with half of his skull missing.

Over the course of the two months since Muhammad’s injury and Ahed’s detention, the extended Tamimi family of Nabi Saleh and its twin village Deir Nitham have seen over a dozen of their relatives arrested, at least three put on trial in military court, and one — 16-year-old Musaab Tamimi of Deir Nitham — shot and killed by Israeli forces.

Campaign of Vengeance

By Monday afternoon, Muhammad had been released, while the nine others who were arrested remained in Israeli custody, according to Bassem Tamimi, the father of Ahed Tamimi.

Despite being released, Bassem told Mondoweiss that the fact that Muhammad was even arrested in the first place is indicative of Israel’s disregard for basic human rights.

“Muhammad is critically injured because of the occupation, and they put his life in even more danger last night,” Bassem said, adding “this just proves they don’t care about any international opinion, human rights or international law.”

Bassem told Mondoweiss that Monday’s detentions were just another part of Israel’s campaign of vengeance targeting the Tamimi family in the wake of Ahed’s arrest.

“Every international institution that deals with the Palestinians and human rights issues are responsible for the lives of our children and for the suffering of the Tamimi family and Nabi Saleh village,” Bassem said.

The Tamimi’s relatives in Deir Nitham expressed similar sentiments following the killing of their son Musaab in January, saying that days after Ahed’s arrest, the people of the village were threatened by Israeli soldiers who told them “The day will come when you wish you are not a Tamimi.”

“We have become a symbol of nonviolent resistance, and they [Israel] don’t want the voice of Palestine to be heard from anywhere or anyone,” Bassem said, “who knows what they will do next.”

International campaign for Ahed’s release continues

The Tamimi family of Nabi Saleh is well known internationally for their activism against the Israeli occupation, which maintains a heavy, near-constant presence in their village.

Ahed is famous across Palestine and the Arab world for videos of her, since her childhood, defiantly resisting Israeli soldiers who clash with Palestinians in her village nearly every week.

Two years ago, her family made headlines when an Israeli soldier violently attempted to arrest her younger brother, who had one arm in a cast at the time. Ahed and her mother manager to pull the soldier of her brother and free him.

Since her arrest in December, Ahed has become the subject of dozens of solidarity campaigns across the world demanding her release from Israeli prison, and an end to Israeli detention of Palestinian children.

As Ahed and her mother Nariman — who was arrested after her daughter — are being prosecuted behind closed doors, international rights groups such as Amnesty International have called for their immediate release, saying that Ahed’s detention “is a desperate attempt to intimidate Palestinian children who dare to stand up to repression by occupying forces.”

The group highlighted that under the Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a state party, “the arrest, detention or imprisonment of a child must be used only as a measure of last resort and for the shortest appropriate period of time,” adding that Ahed is currently facing up to 10 years in prison

According to prisoners rights group Addameer, as of January 2018, there were 330 Palestinian children being held in Israeli prison.

Meanwhile, Bassem, who has been denied permission to visit Ahed in prison, waits until the next court date to catch a glimpse of his daughter.