Send a Postcard to Ahed Tamimi – Let Her Know that Millions are Thinking of Her

Whilst Israel gaoled a 16 year old Palestinian girl for slapping the soldier who nearly killed her cousin 

a Settler walked free for the same 'crime'

Like South Africa before it, Israel has no sense of its own absurdity.  The suggestion that Israel's military is in danger from a 16 year old Palestinian girl who dared to slap a heavily armed Israeli soldier who, moments before, had shot her cousin in the head, almost killing him, is something only a state that is paranoid beyond measure could believe.  Even more amazing is that Israel believes everybody else is as stupid as it is.  Yet Israel is not alone.  

All settler colonial states demonise their opponents and transform them into superhuman devils.  South Africa did exactly the same.  A siege mentality is common to all settler communities.  Israel really is no exception.

There has been massive reaction world wide to the gaoling of Ahed and Israel’s threats of rape, sexual abuse as well as indefinite imprisonment of a young girl.  Like South Africa before it and indeed Nazi Germany from which it claims its origins, the Israeli state is incapable of looking in the mirror because it is afraid of what it will see.

The racism of what has happened cries out.  A Jewish child would never see the inside of an Israeli gaol for such a minor misdemeanour.  As the Ha’aretz article below shows, an adult settler thug of a woman walked free of all legal consequences after giving an Israeli soldier a slap. Why? Because she is Jewish and Ahed isn’t.

Please send a postcard to Ahed to let her know we are thinking of her as she begins another night in a cold and lonely Zionist cell. 

Tony Greenstein

Brighton says – Release Ahed Tamimi 

What Kind of State is it that Gaols a 16 year old girl?

 

Both Ahed Tamimi and Yifat Alkobi were questioned for slapping a soldier in the West Bank, but little else about their cases are similar — simply because one is Jewish, the other Palestinian

Noa Osterreicher 05.01.2018 

This slap didn’t lead the nightly news. This slap, which landed on the cheek of a Nahal soldier in Hebron, did not lead to an indictment. The assailant, who slapped a soldier who was trying to stop her from throwing stones, was taken in for questioning but released on bail the same day and allowed to return home.

Yifat Alkobi - a violent settler who slapped a soldier protecting children from rock throwing settlers - nothing happened to her

Prior to this incident, she had been convicted five times — for throwing rocks, for assaulting a police officer and for disorderly conduct, but was not jailed even once.

In one instance, she was sentenced to probation, and in the rest to a month of community service and practically a token fine, as compensation to the injured parties. The accused systematically failed to heed summonses for questioning or for legal proceedings, but soldiers did not come to drag her out of bed in the middle of the night, nor were any of her relatives arrested. Aside from a brief report by Chaim Levinson about the incident, on July 2, 2010, there were hardly any repercussions to the slap and scratches inflicted by Yifat Alkobi on the face of a soldier who caught her hurling rocks at Palestinians.

Mohammed Tamimi (15) - Ahed's cousin was nearly killed by a rubber bullet fired directly at his head by soldiers shortly before Ahed slapped an Israeli soldier

The Israel Defense Forces Spokesperson’s Unit said at the time that the army “takes a grave view of any incidence of violence toward security forces,” and yet the assailant goes on living peacefully at home. The education minister didn’t demand that she sit in prison, social media have not exploded with calls for her to be raped or murdered, and columnist Ben Caspit didn’t recommend that she punished to the full extent of the law “in a dark place, without cameras.”

Like Ahed Tamimi, Alkobi has been known for years to the military and police forces that surround her place of residence, and both are considered a nuisance and even a danger. The main difference between them is that Tamimi assaulted a soldier who was sent by a hostile government that does not recognize her existence, steals her land and kills and wounds her relatives, while Alkobi, a serial criminal, assaulted a soldier from her own people and her religion, who was sent by her nation to protect her, a nation in which she is a citizen with special privileges.

Jewish violence against soldiers in the territories has been a matter of routine for years. But even when it seems like there’s no point asking that soldiers in the territories protect Palestinians from physical harassment and vandalism of their property by settlers, it’s hard to understand why the authorities continue to turn a blind eye, to cover up and close cases or not even open them, when the violators are Jews. There is plenty of evidence, some of it recorded on camera. And yet the offenders still sleep at home in their beds, emboldened by divine command and amply funded by organizations that receive state support.

Sixteen-year-old Ahed Tamimi at Ofer military prison in the West Bank January 1, 2018AHMAD GHARABLI/AFP

In the winter it’s nice to get warm and cozy under these double standards, but there’s one question that every Israeli should be asking himself: Tamimi and Alkobi committed the same offense. The punishment (or lack thereof) should be the same. If the choice is between freeing Tamimi or jailing Alkobi, which would you choose? Tamimi is to remain in custody for the duration of the proceedings — trial in a hostile military court — and is expected to receive a prison sentence. Alkobi, who was not prosecuted for this offense, and was tried in a civilian court for much more serious offenses, lived at home for the duration of the proceedings. She was represented by a lawyer who did not have to wait at a checkpoint in order to serve his client and her only punishment was community service.

The Likud and Habayit Hayehudi cabinet ministers have no reason to rush to pass a law that would apply Israeli law in the territories. Even without it, the only thing that matters is if you were born Jewish. Everything else is irrelevant.

G4S – a Licence to Murder

G4S  - Decides to Quit Key Contracts in Israel because of ‘adverse publicity’

Jimmy Mubenga

G4S – the organisation which  murdered Jimmy Mubenga, an asylum seeker in Britain last year, has now been caught with its greedly little fingers in Israeli ‘security pie’ enforming the ‘security’ of Israel’ settlements.


But the organisation, the largest such in the world, having only just recovered from the Olympics debacle, has no wish to take on the BDS lobby and has decided that discretion in the better part of valour.

Tony Greenstein

Financial Times April 21, 2013 5:42 pm

G4S to quit key contracts in Israel

By Gill Plimmer

palestinian-Arafat Jaradat tortured-to-death-in-g4s-israel prison

G4S, the world’s biggest security company by revenues, has confirmed it is planning to quit key contracts in Israel amid protests against its involvement in settlements within occupied Palestinian territories.

The company employs 6,000 people in Israel, where it provides and maintains screening equipment for several West Bank military checkpoints. It also manages security systems at the controversial Ofer Prison in the Occupied West Bank.

But with sporadic international protests continuing both outside the FTSE 100’s headquarters in London and internationally, the company said it would exit the contracts covering Ofer, the checkpoints and the West Bank police headquarters when they terminate in 2015.

“Having conducted a review in 2011, we concluded that, to ensure that G4S Israel business practices remain in line with our own business ethics policy, we would aim to exit the contracts which involve the servicing of security equipment at a small number of barrier checkpoints, a prison and a police station in the West Bank area,” G4S told the Financial Times.

The University of Oslo has decided to end its contract with G4S

The move will nevertheless disappoint protesters, who have called on G4S to end all dealings with the Israeli prison authorities. The security company will continue to service security systems in commercial and government sites inside Israel, including jails housing Palestinian inmates, after 2015.

Analysts have raised the prospect that G4S could be tempted to divest the Israeli business altogether. The company has raised “reputational risk” higher up the list of priorities in the wake of its humiliating failure to provide 10,400 guards contracted for the London Olympics, with the armed forces called in to make up the shortfall.

Kean Marden, analyst at Jefferies, the US investment bank, said in a note: “G4S Israel may be next to be divested? The Israel/Palestine conflict has created reputational issues. In our view the potential disposal of G4S Israel could be announced as soon as the 25 June capital markets day.”

G4S has established a risk committee and is conducting more formal reviews of the operational and reputational dangers of contracts worth more than £20m. It has also stated its ambition to offload underperforming parts of the business.

The group earned £100m in sales at its Israeli operations last year. But the division accounts for just 1 per cent of global revenues, and 1 per cent of profits at the global group, which employs 625,000 people in 125 countries.

Last week 19 non-government organisations from Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Palestine called on Arab nations and the European Union to stop dealing with G4S. The Scottish Trades Union Congress also voted on Tuesday to support Palestinian calls for a boycott of the multinational. It has agreed to put pressure on Holyrood to cancel G4S’s new £13m contract to carry out the electronic tagging of offenders in Scotland over the next five years.

G4S has said that it has no people working at the prison sites or managing control rooms in jails in Israel or the occupied territories; staff simply fix security equipment such as CCTV and leave.
Earlier this week, Trevor Dighton, finance director, sold 30 per cent of his share holding, or about 400,000 shares, at £2.958 and raised £1.3m. According to the latest report and accounts Mr Dighton held 1.46m shares (including deferred shares) on December 31 2012. His successor, Ashley Almanza, starts on 1 May.