Israeli soliders attacking mourners (Photo: Holly Rigby)
The following is an eyewitness account of Mustafa Tamimi's funeral procession on Sunday. It is from a longer post on Holly Rigby's blog Carbonating Change:
This has been one of the darkest and most disturbing days I have ever had to experience. The funeral of Mustafa Tamimi, murdered by the Israeli military at a demonstration at Nabi Saleh on Friday, ended with the military shooting endless rounds of the teargas canisters that killed Mustafa at unarmed mourners, beating and arresting people with impunity as they walked across Nabi Saleh village after the funeral.
I had heard many times of Palestinians murdered by the military, but since being here the Palestinian struggle has become my struggle – when Mustafa died I felt my heart breaking at this unnecessary and cruel loss of life, and wept last night as if he were my own.
Around 200 people marched through the streets of Ramallah this morning carrying Mustafa’s body, wrapped in a Palestinian flag with a kuffieyeh to cover his head. As his body was laid in the ambulance, we got into a service to follow it to the village. On the way there, I called an activist friend of mine to let her know where we were going, and she warned me to be careful. I assured her that there was surely no way that the military would be able to unashamedly devastate the funeral of a young man with violence. I now realise just how naive that was, and how deeply I underestimated the savagery of the Israeli army.
By the time we arrived in the village of Nabi Saleh, there were more than 2000 people who had joined the funeral procession, the men carrying his body above their heads with cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ (‘God is Great’) and the chilling howls of the village women calling Mustafa’s name echoing through the tiny village streets.
We saw Mustafa’s sister walking distraught but defiant, with tears wracking her face, and his father being held by both arms by men around him, almost unable to walk, crippled by his grief. This was the death of a martyr for the Palestinian struggle, and the devastating effects of his death could be seen in every face I turned to.
His body was carried through the streets to his home for a final goodbye, to the mosque where the funeral prayers were spoken, and then eventually to the grave overlooking the beautiful Palestinian valleys on the outskirts of the village. My flatmate wanted to say some prayers for Mustafa so we walked back towards the mosque, but when we returned to the cemetery I was surprised to see the mourners had dispersed, when suddenly I recognised the acrid smell of tear gas fill my nose and my stomach turned as I realised what was taking place.
As I sprinted down the rocky terrain towards the entrance of the village, I saw elderly women and children running back up the other way, their faces blotchy and red with burning tears, doubled over and wretching as they tried to move away from where the army was firing. Unarmed mourners who only moments before had been grieving tears for their lost son, were now being attacked by the Israeli army with round after round of tear gas and being sprayed with skunk water, a foul smelling liquid unlike any waste sewage you have ever smelt.
As I moved closer to the protesters, I asked what had happened and they explained that the ten Israeli army jeeps I could see in the distance had arrived during the funeral, and were placed there to taunt and goad this grieving village. In the distance I could see the young men throwing stones at the army vehicles, a symbolic gesture expressing their deep anger against the death of their brother and against this cruel and twisted occupation.
Suddenly, I heard a loud crack and all around me the silver tear gas canisters that had killed Mustafa were being shot directly at where I was standing with other activists from ISM, and we ran up the road through clouds of billowing tear gas smoke, desperately trying to avoid the path of these silver bullet-like objects.
We were called up the road by a Palestinian from the village and he pointed down the hill to the east of the village where another unit of Israeli soldiers were standing languidly at the bottom – waiting, goading, intimidating – knowing that the Palestinians would not stand by as another group of soldiers occupied their land on this day. We ran down the rocky slope where at the bottom the women who earlier had been sobbing and lamenting the death of Mustafa were now screaming into the faces of these soldiers, holding his picture to their faces and demanding to know which one of them had killed their brother.
As I stood taking photographs of this painful scene, time suddenly collapsed into itself when I saw one of the soldiers smirk and tear the poster of Mustafa from a woman’s hands and rip it into pieces at the same moment a sound bomb exploded next to me, quickly followed by a tear gas canister that had been thrown and detonated at my feet. My face, my head, my mouth, my whole body was suddenly filled with tear gas and I ran away blindly as my face scorched from the gas and I felt like my head was going to explode on itself. I couldn’t breathe nor see nor think of anything apart from the burning that filled my lungs and head, and in the panic and confusion I ran as fast as I could from the canister.
But no demonstration I have attended here could have prepared me for the scene that was unfolding when I finally managed to regain my balance and ran back up the road to where the soldiers and Palestinians had gathered.
Israeli soldiers were savagely beating anybody within their vicinity, three or four soldiers at a time grabbing men and throwing them to the floor, kicking them violently and stamping on their heads. As I stood back from the scene taking photographs, a soldier suddenly lunged towards us entirely unprovoked and threw one of the ISM activists I was with against the barrier of the road, doubling him over it as his body crashed to the ground. I screamed in his face "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING YOU ANIMALS," and he shoved me out the way and turned back to the group of soldiers that had amassed to join in the violent spree.
As they tried to arrest more and more people the group of strong and defiant Palestinian women we were with threw their bodies over the men they were trying to drag away, and the soldiers began dragging these women by their hijabs, their clothes, wringing the necks of the men who were under this pile of women and trying to pull them from underneath. Covering and protecting the bodies of those trying to be arrested, the women were screaming so loudly for the soldiers to stop and this sound pierced my heart more deeply than any sound bomb could ever have done.
As I stood a few paces back from what was happening, my whole body was wracked with uncontrollable sobs as I helplessly looked on as the scene unfolded. Never in my life have I felt more powerless, weak and unable to do anything to intervene in the horrific scene that was playing out in front of my very eyes. The soldiers there were like savages, no remorse in their faces as their murderous hands grabbed and pulled the bodies of these innocent people who had come that day to mourn the loss of their brother.
After arresting three and beating many more, the group was forced to retreat back up the hill we had come from, running from the soldiers as they fired round after round of tear gas after us. A tear gas bomb exploded directly at the feet of one of the protesters, and inhaling the thick plumes of smoke, he began suffocating and collapsed on the ground. As people gathered around him trying to help him, the soldiers who were watching what was happening started firing tear gas directly at the group that was helping the unconscious man, and they were forced to drag his body up the hill to escape.
We spent the next twenty minutes dodging tear gas as we made our way back up the hill, until eventually things began to calm so we made our way back to where the protest had begun originally, and the violence there too had dissipated.
As we sat in the service on the way back to Ramallah, I came to understand what the word ‘shell shocked’ really means. My mind was almost numb as we drove through the Palestinian valleys, unable to truly comprehend the things I had seen. It was only when I got back to my flat and recounted what had happened to my anxious flatmates that all my anger and distress bubbled to the surface once again, and I sobbed uncontrollably as I tried to understand what I had just experienced.
Knowing that this level of violence is what the Palestinian people have experienced for 64 years, almost powerless against the brutal, mechanised force of a murdering Israeli army, serves to only more deeply cement my hatred for the Israeli military and the terrible things they inflict on the wonderful people I have spent the last three months with. Its difficult to put into words the grief and humiliated anger that I feel as I sit here writing this, and yet I still cannot believe that the Palestinians are so strong and defiant against this savage, repressive force.
The injustice of the occupation courses through my veins, and I cannot begin to get my head around the mentality that would allow the Israeli soldiers to act as they did today. As one of my flatmates said, the Israeli military has no respect for the living, so why would we think they would have even an ounce of respect for the dead? What I saw today was humanity at its very worst, savagery that I did not think possible. Yet still knowing that this is only scratching the surface of the suffering experienced by Palestinians as they try to defend their lives, their lands and their homes hurts me more deeply than anything I have experienced in my life.
This is not propaganda. This is not my opinion. This is an account of a terrible scene that should only reinforce how destructive and cruel this occupation really is. Those who try to explain or justify the behaviour of the Israeli army are as complicit in these actions as the soldiers perpetrating these terrible crimes. Silence is compliance – I will not be silenced.
At the University of Michigan, unbelievable repression of the “Boycott Israel” campaign has occurred. You can comment on it here, if you wish to:
link to michigandaily.com
For example, the University student government recently outlawed any comparison of the Israeli army with the Ku Klux Klan:
link to arabamericannews.com
But-but they ARE the ZIOKKK.
There has got to be a breaking point when these peaceful protests can no longer take being silenced or having ‘laws’ limiting the way they can criticize. These Zionist interest groups use every trick in the book, time to use their tricks against them. Don’t need to drop to their level. But why not find a way to blackmail and threat the universities right back? Even get violent as long as it is directed toward the right people and for the right purpose.
I used to think it was brave watching non-violent protesters just allow the police to show how thuggish they are without putting up a fight. And it is. But then the police just get away with it. There are more protesters than police. Mob them. Take them down. Disarm them. Handcuff them with their own cuffs.
People need to realize that the oppressors are few in numbers and we outnumber them severely. There is no barrier between even the 1% and the 99% other than a psychological one. Non-violence and peaceful protesting is not going to change the world. I am no longer convinced. It didn’t do anything. Look at Egypt, nothing has changed, the military is just in charge now. If they’re going to silence us and intimidate us and limit our free speech, what other choice do we have? It will get to a point where you will be arrested for peacefully protesting and speaking freely. I just wish everybody would wake up and realize that.
The Zionists and the lobbies and the elite, they need to have the shit scared out of them. Otherwise nothing will change. Like if 100,000 people broke into AIPAC headquarters and just tore the place up but didn’t hurt anybody, that would be amazing IMO.
Good and evil and morals are subject to opinion. For example, a pro-lifer believes a pro-choicer is ‘evil’ in many cases. The only thing separating us from them is they aren’t afraid of us. Some of us aren’t afraid of them, but most of the masses are. Balance your brain, the good and the bad. What’s just may not always be good. Not talking about harming innocent people. Only guilty ones.
powerful post, exhaustingly powerful and breathtaking. amazing, thank you holly. for putting these words down for all of us. it something people need to hear, the rawness of your emotion and wisdom beyond your years. i guess people grow up fast in palestine.
There was completely NO reason for the Israeli soldiers to show up there.
No f–en reason. They came to stir trouble, stir more anger, make some relief for their sadistic inclinations. They are The G-ds, they are The Law, masters of this small universe. They provocked and attacked completely innocent, powerless people.
“Brave” soldiers, armed with the most modern equipment ,( thank you USA) going against teenage boys and young women. They call it bravery, restoring their “deterrence capacity”.
I guess, they have to quickly, secretely fill their prisons with those 1000 Palestianians, that were lately released in exchange for 1 Israeli soldier.
This exchange was broadcasted all over the news. The arresting of Palestinians after that is done in secret. Gradually.
Corrupted, sold-out mainsteamers don’t inform public about it.
They are busy promoting some stupid , superficial shows about Big Nothing.
Yeah,they really think they are gods.Amazing in the post(pre)modern era.
I don’t think Yahweh approves.
Israel is, I believe,deliberately attempting to provoke the Palestinian response from non-violent one to a new phase of violence. They are scared of the UN bid, and they are scared of losing (they’ve already lost) control of the I/P narrative. There’s only so much the Palestinians can take before they succeed, and still not enough of the truth about Israel is breaking thru the US/Zio MSM Wall around reality.
This Israeli viciousness was planned, just waiting for the excuse to happen. How many times do we have to hear the racism these soldiers have been raised with from infancy? Had there been pits or ovens nearby, who could doubt that these people, whom they often state are less than human, have no right to exist on the land they covet, would have been thrown in? The mindset is NO different than that in another place far away three generations ago.
IDF Spokesman Brigadier Yoav Mordechai, when asked what the reaction would be had the Settler rioters and stone throwers been Palestinian:
“I assume, Carmela, that you wouldn’t expect the brigade commander to open fire at a Jew standing in front of him, I am certain you didn’t mean that.”
link to 972mag.com
Blatant admission of apartheid in practice.
Clearly it is permissible for IOF “soldiers” to act like a bunch of rioting armed thugs. “Soldiers” and “Shtetlers” are one and the same.
Haaretz has articles today about how even Lieberman is saying they need to do something about the Jewish ‘price tag’ attacks with Barak admitting they are terrorists. This could all be empty words, but they did attack a IOF security facility and the soldiers didn’t do anything in retaliation. If they were Palestinian…. yeah you know what would have happened.
I don’t know what I would do if I was Palestinian. Part of me would not give into provocation because it would be used against the Palestinians. Part of me knows that Israel is doing a fine job de-legitimizing themselves by allowing the ultra orthodox to go rouge. I don’t think the ultra orthodox will ever get the upperhand and control Israel, but Bibi is letting them run wild. If they did gain any sort of power over what they already have, a civil war would break out. Then another big part of me just thinks they should take up arms and go after strategic sites (military, illegal outposts) on their own territory because they are within their right IMO.
Counting down the comments until the usual gang of thugs arrive to tell us Holly Rigby did not really experience this, and Witty will be along to tell us why.
“Counting down the comments until the usual gang of thugs arrive to tell us Holly Rigby did not really experience this, and Witty will be along to tell us why.”
And along comes Pudula 5’2”, right on schedule.
Thank you so much Holly for getting this down “on paper” and witnessing/sharing this most difficult episode with those of us struggling to understand such unabashed anti-Arab hatred and violence.
“..the men carrying his body above their heads with cries of ‘Allahu Akbar’ (‘God is Great’)..”
Allahu Akhab means ‘Allah is the Greatest’. Which is to say, Allah, Islam’s God, is greater then all other Gods or human beliefs.
Translation from pudzionist666:
There are no moderate Muslims; all Muslims are extremists.
Alternate translation from pudzionist666:
I’m too stupid to know that “Allah” is the same God that Jews and Christians worship.
shorter pz: i’m islamophobic, anything they believe i can turn ugly
Actually too stupid to know that ‘Allah’ means God in Arabic and is used by Christians, Jews and Muslims to refer to God in the Arabic language.
We should probably send him/her to a mizrahi synagogue. 777 would probably freak to hear middle eastern quarter tones and chanting. “Out, out, damned spot!”
>> Allahu Akhab means ‘Allah is the Greatest’. Which is to say, Allah, Islam’s God, is greater then all other Gods or human beliefs.
Imagine that: Adherents of a particular faith think their gawd is the greatest.
I also hear that the sun rises in the East.
Too funny…
“Allahu Akhab means ‘Allah is the Greatest’. Which is to say, Allah, Islam’s God, is greater then all other Gods or human beliefs.”
And that gives the soldiers the right to attack them?
Oh my God, what happens when hundreds and hundreds of Christians, trinitarians, find out that the S’hma says: “The Lord Out God is One”. Will they kill us all?
Oh, don’t worry, PissZionist666, you are your own trinity: You are pathetic, cowardly and ridiculous.
Your translation skills require immediate remedy.
The Mosaic faiths share the same god. Which is why Jewish theologians and philosophers were heavily influenced by their Islamic (and Christian) brethren writing in Arabic and Persian – the Brethren of Purity, al-Faradi, Avicenna, Averroes etc and Jewish philosophers and theologians wrote in Arabic and influenced Islam in turn.
It should be Allahu Akbar, not, Akab. If you are going to be an amateur orientalist who dabbles in Islamophobia, at least get the spelling right.
Now, if you knew anything about Islam — mind you, when I write “knew”, I am referring to accurate facts, not propaganda — you wouldn’t be making those wild claims.
The fact of the matter is that Islam UNLIKE Christianity and Judaism DOES in fact revere both of those religions and the prophets that delivered them, meaning Jesus and Moses respectively.
And that is why when a devout Moslem mentions the name of Moses, he or she appends “Peace Be Upon Him” to his name and prefixes it with Sayidunah, the Arabic word for Master or Guide.
Now show me the last time YOU, or any self-styled Jew like you for that matter, showed that kind of respect for Muhammad. Note that referring to Muhammad as a “Terrorist” and a “Pig F****” doesn’t constitute respect (Just in case you had some doubts).
P.S. – The exact meaning of Allahu Akbar is God is Great (i.e. Supreme). That is to say in relation to all humans, us, we, mere mortals.
Next time, try to take a class called Islam 101, not Islamophobia 101.
Yeah,that gets me about the( alleged)Christian support of Israel,that the(some?) Israelis call Jesus ,Yoshke,the village idiot,while Muslims venerate him.
We live in ludicrous times and speed.
A testimony to the power of MSM brainwashing.
Ha ha.Shhhh;maybe he is.But at least they are more humble than the Zionists about it.
proudzionist777, It’s the same god as in any other Abrahamic religion (Christianity, Judsaim, Islam, and all the various sects). I don’t know why you said ‘human beliefs’ when the vast majority of humanity does not practice any form of Abrahamism. I guess the makes those who practice Hindu, Shinto, Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, etc. sub-human, eh? Especially because Buddhists for example don’t even have a god in their faith.
Allah comes from the Hebrew word for god, El or Eli (also Elohim). Eli in Aramaic is Ĕlāhā and Allah is derived from that. El originates from the Sumerian wind god Enlil. En being the word for ‘lord’ and lil referring to ‘storm.’ Enlil’s consort Ninlil and their granddaughter (and sometimes daughter) is Inanna/Ishtar. Both Inanna and Ninlil are the inspiration behind the Lilith character of some Apocrypha. The ‘strange woman’ of Proverbs is also Inanna and Proverbs 2:18–19 specifically are referring to Inanna’s descent to the underworld (DSS 4Q184 makes this quite clear). Inanna’s consort Tammuz (aka Dumuzi) is also specifically mentioned in Ezekiel 8:14-15.
Elsewhere, Inanna is referred to as Asherah in versions of the Hebrew Bible and also Apocrypha. She is said at times to be the consort of Yahweh (seriously I am not making this up) and later on worship of her is forbidden.
Why is this relevant? Because there are several gods in the Bible. Elohim is used in the context of gods, later changed to Angels or occasionally B’nai Elohim (sons of god). The sons of the sons are called Nephilim.
Allah might be considered the name of god to many Muslims, just as capitalized God is the name of god for many Christians (instead of using Jehovah/Yahweh). In all of monotheistic Abrahamism, it refers to the exact same deity. Period. The other ‘gods’ have become Angels over the year and Islam uses the exact same Angels.
If anybody cares to look further down this rabbit hole, read the first chapter of Revelation, specifically 1:12-15. Now in your imagination think about what a Christmas angel looks like (like those ones you see on windows). With that in mind, here is a picture of Inanna:
link to matrifocus.com
This is taken from a 4000+ year old Akkadian cylinder seal.
nice leg, that seal is cool, Innanna, looks too bad for an angel, i want one.
Well, prudezaniest? I’m still having trouble understanding your comment. Are you saying that, which seems to be implicit in your comment, that because the mourners were saying prayers, the Israeli soldiers had the right to brutally attack them, men and women alike?
If you wish to cite instances when non-Jewish prayers or religious slogans have injured Jews, please, go right ahead. Who knows, the verities like “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never harm me” may give way or be reversed in light of the Higgs-Boson discoveries.
What should happen to Israel and Israelis?
What would be justice?
HELL.
Thank you, Holly.
Holly, thank you. Please stay safe and take care of yourself. Your brave solidarity with Palestinians is exemplary and invaluable.
oh well tis the season etc Allahu Akbar is of course a contraction, for Allahu Akbar min kuli shai or there abouts, which does not mean much, just God is greater than this or greater than everything, ie whatever one is facing, doing or intending. anyway if anyones is interested could check out mn roy an indian marxist on islam and muhammad. top marks for the stupid islamophobic (spell check wants that to be homophobic, so clearly there is a god) shit above though that made my day, yeah they say their god is the best, bastards.
link to marxists.org
budhhists dont even have a God, now now they can have none many or some sort of half way thingies, check out vajrayana deities true you have to believe in them being not really real in the sense that they are not outside you see, your mind is god, really it says in the prayers “until mind itself dawns as Padmasambhava”
also Allah is not derived from Hebrew, Hebrew and Arabic are cognates so the word for god in them comes from that now lost language from which they are both derived, just to be clear. and wiki says:
“it is used primarily by Muslims and Bahá’ís, and often, albeit not exclusively, used by Arabic-speaking Eastern Catholic Christians, Maltese Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox Christians, Mizrahi Jews and Sikhs.” so many people to hate, so little time to make shit up.