Israeli poet Yehonatan Geffen caused a furor in Israel for his comparison of Ahed Tamimi to Anne Frank, but he has now recanted his offending comparison. This followed incitement by Israeli government ministers creating what he calls “effective house arrest” for the past week. Not so bad compared to Ahed Tamimi’s detention or Dareen Tatour’s house arrest.
Michael Oren has made himself a laughingstock by starting an investigation into whether the Tamimi family of Nabi Saleh is “a real family”, because they wear baseball caps backward. The more important question is whether Israel is a real country; and it gets harder and harder to believe that it is.
And on the day the story of the struggle is told,
You, Ahed Tamimi,
With red hair,
Like David who slapped Goliath,
Will be mentioned in the same line
As Joan of Arc, Hannah Szenes and Anne Frank.
On Monday, Israeli poet Yehonatan Gefen posted a poem on his Instagram honoring Ahed Tamimi. Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman was so infuriated by this he called for all media outlets to ban Gefen and his work completely.
An Israeli military court ruled today to keep 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi and her mother Nariman in prison until the end of their trial. “I expect the worst from the occupation,” Ahed’s father Bassem told Mondoweiss. “This is life under occupation. I think we represent and show the real suffering of Palestinians under occupation. This is the real image.”
Ahed Tamimi, 16, has been held in an Israeli prison for nearly a month since her arrest last December 19 for slapping a soldier. Today a military court in Ofer prison inside occupied territory extended her detention indefinitely, till she is tried.
Ma’an News reports the Israeli army declared the central occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh — home to imprisoned teenage activist Ahed al-Tamimi — a closed military zone on Saturday, closing off all entrances and exits.
There are many parallels between Martin Luther King Jr’s call for “direct political action” leading to a crisis for the Jim Crow South, in his letter from Birmingham jail in 1963, and Ahed Tamimi’s courageous slap of a soldier after her cousin was maimed in occupied Nabi Saleh last month, leading to her imprisonment for nearly a month already.
A month after she slapped a soldier in occupied Nabi Saleh, 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi faces a final bail hearing today at court. She has been imprisoned since December 19. Professor Asa Kasher, author of the IDF ‘ethics code, opines that Ahed Tamimi is dangerous, because she may slap again.
Ahed Tamimi and Nabi Saleh have shown that popular unarmed resistance – if it is to discomfort Israel and the world – cannot afford to be passive or polite. It must be fearless, antagonistic and disruptive. Most of all, it must hold up a mirror to the oppressor. Ahed has exposed the gun-wielding bully lurking in the soul of too many Israelis. That is a lesson worthy of Gandhi or Mandela.