Media Analysis

Sarah Silverman stands by Ahed Tamimi: ‘Do you wonder where her rage comes from?’

After comedian Sarah Silverman called last week for people “to stand up” for imprisoned Palestinian teen Ahed Tamimi, she quickly encountered a barrage of feedback that lasted through the weekend. Some applauded, some criticized, some sought to educate Silverman, who has a history of supporting groups opposed to Israel’s occupation.

The comic retweeted a call from Amnesty International for Tamimi to be freed from jail, two months after she slapped a soldier.

In the backlash, journalist Noah Pollak accused Silverman of “narcissistic Hollywood political posturing at its vilest and most ignorant” while pro-Israel activist Chloé Valdary wrote to Silverman, Tamimi is from a “notorious terrorist-supporting family.”

Silverman reacted with,

“Ok, friend. But may I ask, do you wonder why she has done this? And where her rage comes from? And might we see ourselves in her in any way?”

Tamimi, 17, was arrested last December 19 in the early morning hours at her family home in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. She has since been indicted on five counts of assault and incitement. Her case has gained prominence because supporters say the teen is subject to an unfair Israeli military court system that issues harsh sentences to Palestinians.

In the actual incident that led to Tamimi’s arrest, the petite teen on December 15 shouted at an Israeli soldier entering her family’s property, “Get out or I’ll punch you,” and then slapped him. The encounter, which followed the shooting of Tamimi’s cousin Mohammed that day, in Jerusalem-related protests, was filmed by Ahed Tamimi’s mother Nariman, and the two shared the footage on social media, which landed them both additional charges of incitement.

Silverman is the latest with a high profile to back Tamimi. Earlier this month 27 celebrities signed a letter seeking Tamimi’s release. But Silverman stands apart by being the most well-known of the supporters with ties to Israel, through both family and support to liberal causes. Her older sister Susan Silverman is a prominent rabbi in Israel and campaigner most known for calling for an egalitarian prayer section at the Western Wall in the Old City– including in many demonstrations.

Sarah Silverman has twice performed in the Jewish state. In one of her shows she mentioned Palestinians must wait in long lines at checkpoints in order to enter Israel. Last year she contributed to a Passover Hagadah that called to end Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem. In the 2012 and 2015 elections in Israel she endorsed the Meretz party, a left-wing group that is opposed to Israel’s occupation (and current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu) and calls for the creation of a Palestinian state. Her views have been shared over social media for years. As late as last December, she set her Twitter location to “state of Palestine.”

In the Twitter-storm over Tamimi, Silverman reposted a list of organizations that back Palestinian rights, and an article by the left-Jewish group IfNotNow that criticizes Zionism. IfNotNow invited her to attend a meeting with them in-person in Los Angeles.

Here’s a screen shot of part of a text exchange Silverman had with fellow comedian Jen Jajah:

At one point Silverman posted, “I keep thinking about what @DaveChappelle says in “The Bird Revelation” about South Africa, Steven Biko, and how the end of apartheid should have been a blood bath but wasn’t, and why.”

None of this kept her from being called vile and a supporter of terrorism.

Though she has gotten support.

 

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If you have not already, go to Sarah Silverman’s Twitter account and read the intense flack she is getting for standing up for Ahed Tamimi. Both need all the help of any kind you can give, even if its just a comment less RT.

My respect for Ms. Silverman increases.

The flack she’s getting from so-called jews is disgusting. They are epitomizing everything jews are supposed to fight against – injustice, hatred, racism, etc., etc. Ms. Silverman is standing tall to each and every one of the trolls on her twitter page – not with anger, vulgarity, hatred, but honesty and integrity and that mirror she is holding up for them so they can see how awful hatred looks.

Yeshayahu Leibowitz foresaw the moral and political dangers involved in the occupation. The occupation Leibowitz objected to was the military occupation, even before it gained its settler aspect. Ahed Tamimi lives in Nabi Saleh and the occupation she confronts is a settler occupation; the settlement Halamish nearby has taken Nabi Saleh’s well or spring and this has been the core of the protests. The settler occupation, because it establishes two sets of laws, one for the settlers and another for the Palestinians, is particularly wrong, establishing a two tier system of citizens and noncitizens.

Ahed Tamimi was arrested for a slap and essentially arrested because of her refusal to kowtow to the occupation and because her refusal was caught on camera and incited Israeli politicians against her. Her age and appearance makes her arrest into a cause celebre.
Her politics and the politics of the Tamimi clan is not pure. But her politics need not be purely nonviolent to make her arrest into an embarrassment and a symptom of the inevitable offense of a settler occupation.

I wish Sara Silverman strength in her new role as unofficial leader of the liberal Zionist opposition to the occupation. I advise her to watch videos of Yeshayahu Leibowitz (and get her sister to translate them for her). His personality and appearance and raw heat will get a chuckle from Ms. Silverman and might give her strength.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/02/13/im-ahed-tamimis-cousin-israel-needs-to-stop-imprisoning-kids-like-her/?utm_term=.02b46b35333a

“I’m Ahed Tamimi’s cousin. Israel needs to stop imprisoning kids like her.”

By Nour Tamimi February 13 Washington Post

Nour Tamimi is a journalism student and activist from Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank.

“I had barely fallen asleep when I woke to find an armed Israeli soldier hovering over my bed. He told me to get up quickly and put on a jacket. Half asleep, I was handcuffed, thrown into an army jeep, and taken to be interrogated. They had already taken my 16-year-old cousin, Ahed, the night before, and now it was my turn.

“A few days earlier, the Israeli army raided our town of Nabi Saleh in the occupied West Bank to suppress our weekly demonstration against the illegal Jewish settlement built on our land and the theft of our fresh-water spring by settlers. During the demonstration, a soldier shot our 15-year-old cousin Mohammad in the face from close range, shattering his skull. He was rushed to the hospital and had to be medically induced into a coma. About half an hour later, still traumatized by what happened to our cousin, we found soldiers in the front yard of Ahed’s home where we were sitting and tried to get them to leave. For demanding they leave, my unarmed cousin is now facing charges for confronting an armed soldier.

“When a video of the encounter was shown in Israel, it went viral and many Israelis demanded that we be punished. So, the following week, soldiers came to Ahed’s home in the middle of the night and she was taken away to prison. The next day, her mother Nariman was also imprisoned when she went to check on Ahed. Later that night, I was arrested as well.
I was released on bail after 16 days, but Ahed has now been languishing in prison for nearly two months, as has her mother. On Jan. 31, she spent her 17th birthday in a cell. The start of her trial in a military court has been delayed several times. The latest postponement came on Tuesday, when it was rescheduled for March 11. In a blatant attempt to avoid the scrutiny of the international media, the judge also ruled that journalists will be barred from attending. The charges that Ahed faces carry a maximum sentence of 20 years. I still face charges as well.

“In prison, we were treated very badly. After being arrested, Ahed was taken into a basement cell and interrogated without a parent or lawyer present. She and I were repeatedly moved from one prison to another, held with regular Israeli criminals, and subjected to sexist and degrading verbal harassment. The army knows how to place psychological pressure to break you. They deprived us of sleep and food, and I was forced to remain seated in a chair unable to move for long hours at a time.

“When we were brought to military court for a hearing, it was very hard seeing our parents sitting in the back feeling worried and helpless. My uncle Bassem Tamimi, Ahed’s father, and my own father know firsthand what Israeli prison feels and smells like. Both have been imprisoned multiple times because of their nonviolent resistance to Israel’s occupation. Bassem was named a prisoner of conscience twice by Amnesty International, which has also called for Ahed’s release. They know that we were held in a freezing-cold cell as we waited for our hearing. They know the pain of the handcuffs as they are tightened on our wrists and ankles, and how dirty the cells are, and the smell of rotten food. They understand what it feels like to be isolated in a cell — completely alone, cold and frightened, unsure of what will happen to you. Like her parents and siblings, I fear for the well-being of Ahed and the more than 300 other Palestinian children currently imprisoned by the Israeli army.

“Ahed and I are the second generation of Tamimis to spend our whole lives under Israel’s oppressive 50-year military rule. We grew up under the constant watch and control of Israeli soldiers. At a young age, we had to learn resilience, determination and persistence. In order to survive, we had to be acutely aware of our surroundings at all times. Even the most basic things, such as being able to move freely or take a day trip wasn’t a possibility because of military checkpoints and other impediments. We had no room to breathe — sometimes literally, as clouds of tear gas fired by soldiers engulfed us and filled our homes.

“Sadly, we are used to soldiers forcing their way into our homes, their cameras clicking as they take photos of the males in the family, documenting how many windows and doors we have, and stealing and destroying our personal belongings. There is no privacy. In addition to my father, my mother and brother have also been imprisoned. Ahed’s uncle was shot and killed by soldiers during a demonstration in 2012, while her mother was shot in the leg during another march and developed asthma because of the tear gas.

“We have had our childhood stolen from us, never knowing the feeling of safety, security, and quiet. The unfortunate truth is that this isn’t only the reality of Ahed and I, or of Nabi Saleh. It is the reality of most Palestinians, especially the young ones.

“Each year, Israel prosecutes between 500 and 700 Palestinian children in its military courts, which have a conviction rate of more than 99 percent. Israel’s two-tiered legal system in the occupied West Bank has been condemned as “separate and unequal” by human rights groups. Settlers, including minors, are subject to Israeli civilian law while Palestinians of all ages are subject to martial law.

“Palestinian children in Israeli military prisons endure systematic abuse — including threats and physical violence — and are pressured to sign confessions in Hebrew that they can’t read, all while being interrogated without a parent or lawyer. These abuses have been well-documented by human rights groups, and even members of the U.S. Congress are now taking action to stop them with a bill that’s intended to make sure American aid doesn’t fund Israel’s imprisonment of Palestinian children or violations of their rights.

“We cannot stand up to Israel alone. The international community and all people of conscience must also stand for justice and not tolerate Israel’s abuses of our rights, especially against children. I imagine my life without the hardships of Israel’s military rule, enjoying the simple liberty of being able to make it to class on time because there is no checkpoint closing my town. Not having to worry about me or my loved ones being killed, injured, or thrown into a military prison for standing up for our rights. Like all people want, we simply want to be able live in freedom.”