This interview with Bassem Tamimi was recorded on May 4, 2018 in the occupied village of Nabi Saleh, by International Solidarity Movement activists.
His daughter Ahed Tamimi, 17, is serving an eight-month prison sentence for slapping an Israeli soldier on the family’s property on December 15 of last year, after Israeli soldiers shot her cousin in the face.
Bassem reflects on his daughter’s choice:
I think more than 300 times they raided inside my house… They took my electronic devices several times. They broke the windows several times. They shot most of my children several times. My son was arrested two times. My wife was arrested five times. I was arrested nine times. I was tortured and be paralyzed for a period of time. My wife was shot in her leg, two years she couldn’t walk. My home is under a demolition order.
After all of that somebody asked, why Ahed slapped a soldier? She must slap the soldier.
Sometimes I feel there is a triple standard or more than in dealing with the Palestinian issue.
Also check out Tamimi’s comments on the two-state solution (a project of the Israeli left, and the Israeli left has disappeared) and the heart of the issue: a colonization project. Till the colonization project ends, the Palestinian resistance will not cease. And notice at the beginning when he shows visitors the surveillance balloon over Nabi Saleh.
You see that balloon watching us? It’s a camera for watching everything.
Israel sure is a “light to the world.”
eljay: One must disprove Israeli propaganda every time it rears its head and fight back for the Palestinians. It’s almost laughable when Israelis (such as Golda Meir) say there is no such thing as Palestine or Palestinians. If there’s not, why are all the names of places in “Israel” Arabic (until they are stolen and renamed with Hebrew words)? If there were no Palestinians in Palestine, how could the terrorists who stole their land destroy the lives of 750,000 Palestinians in the Nakba? Why do Israelis 1) believe they are “god’s chosen people” and therefor superior to all others, especially Arabs? (Because they wrote the book?) 2) think they are the only victims of a holocaust and deny all other holocausts (such as the Armenian holocaust which, no matter how horrible the Jewish holocaust was, was even worse? 3) think Palestinians are less human than the Jews are?
If Israel is a democracy, why can’t same sex couples get married? Why does Israel still have the odious “conversion therapy?” Why do any bills brought before the Knesset to better the lives of LGBTQ people not passed. Why do Palestinians always lose in the Israeli courts. Why can IDF soldiers shoot/murder anyone without consequence.
Why does a girl get an exteme prison sentence for slapping a heavily armed soldier who was illegally on her property? Why don’t soldiers ever go to jail for their crimes?
Why does the Israeli people stand by silently as the Palestinians are poisoned by filthy water (97% of their water is undrinkable). Why does no Israeli protest the shortage of medicines and electricity in Gaza and the West Bank. Why does Israel withhold funds belonging to Palestinians?
Why are the Israeli so cruel. Why are IDF soldiers allowed to stink-bomb children’s schools? Why can the arrest children and question them without their parents..even kids who are still pre-school? Why can’t Palestinians get passports, or move freely about?
Why don’t Israelis every cross over to Gaza or the West Bank and talk to the Palestinians?
I could write all day. Israel is NOT a democracy.
American Perspective
Since you are supposedly new to Mondoweiss I’m going to let you in on a little secret.
All of the crap that you are trying to foist off on us in your screed has been offered up and debunked dozens of times on these pages. None of the lies and Zionist talking points that you are presenting are new. Your penchant for answering questions with another question is a lame rhetorical game that just wastes the reader’s time.
You see, many of the people who post here regularly really care about the plight of the Palestinians and have studied the issue from every angle for years. They are true experts…lawyers, professors and other professionals who have spent years reading and researching everything to do with Palestine, the Palestinians, the law and the history of the region. And unlike you, when they present their points they site documents and references and even attach links.
Very often the comment section has as much or more real information as do the articles.
So why don’t you do us a favor and take your Zionist message and your Hasbara trolling someplace else. We have seen it all before….
Why do Jewish Israelis think Palestinians are less human than they are?
That’s easy. If you mistreat people all the time, you have to persuade yourself that they deserve what you do to them.
Jews of all people should know this. But (I’m paraphrasing Upton Sinclair) it is difficult to make someone understand something, when their continued domination of the country they live in requires them NOT to understand it.