As the #MeToo movement continues to build and uplift more marginalized voices CODEPINK’s Ariel Gold and Taylor Morley write that Ahed Tamimi should be regarded as a pillar in the movement: “Ahed is revoking her consent for Israel’s brutal occupation. She refuses to give her consent to Israeli forces that invade her family’s home in yet another vicious, meritless night raid. She continually confronts her aggressors and stands up to the violent system of power that keeps perpetuating this cycle of abuse against Palestinians, and for that, she is threatened with sexual violence. Now is the time for voices in the #MeToo movement to call for her release and help draw the parallels.”

Before Ahed Tamimi slapped an Israeli soldier on her family’s occupied property on December 15, the soldier slapped her hand away from him. But no one is talking about that violent moment; and Israeli media are showing video of the incident that begins right after that moment, in an effort to describe the incident as one of provocation and restraint, not the usual violence, which in fact preceded and followed the video.

Prominent Israeli journalist Ben Caspit caused international furor last week, when he wrote of Ahed Tamimi, “in the case of the girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras”. Caspit has felt the heat in response to his insidious suggestions and is now in crisis control mode. In a new article Caspit trys to “clarify” in English but Jonathan Ofir says the attempt at spin control is futile and disingenuous: “Caspit, in his desperate attempt to backpedal, is providing an even more pathetic article, which suggests that its just the ‘goyim’ who didn’t understand Israeli jargon.”

Through a bullhorn to cut through the hum of holiday shoppers, some forty people rallied in New York City’s Union Square Friday night in support and solidarity for Ahed Tamimi, the 16-year-old Palestinian girl arrested by Israeli soldiers during a pre-dawn raid of her family’s home in the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. Mariah Tamimi called Ahed the best representative for her people, telling Mondoweiss, “she inspires me; and I think she inspires the rest of Palestine.”

In the five days since Ahed Tamimi’s arrest, Israeli authorities have attempted to coerce confession from her without access to a lawyer or a parent; moved her from the occupied West Bank in contravention of international law; and transferred the sleep-deprived teenager between at least three different detention centers and prisons, including West Jerusalem’s infamous Moscobiyeh detention center. All of this and Tamimi has not yet been charged with a crime.

The New York Times ran a piece on the very different ways that Israelis and Palestinians see the slapping incident involving 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi and an Israeli soldier. It treats an occupying soldier and a 16-year-old girl as equals and does not quote a single member of the Tamimi family, whose land the soldier was on when the incident took place.

There is no stomach which does not turn when seeing video of 16-year-old Ahed Tamimi slapping an Israeli soldier, journalist Ben Caspit writes. And therefore he recommends: “we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras.” This is an incitement to crime.

Today the arrest of Ahed Tamimi, 16, in occupied Nabi Saleh early Tuesday morning, after a video surfaced showing her slapping an Israeli soldier, is gaining global attention, including from the Washington Post. The malignant piece in the Post quotes Israelis calling her “Shirley Temper,” as if Ahed chose to be in an occupied besieged village as a career move at age 10.

Richard Hardigan reports from Nabi Saleh, “Israel is the only country in the world that automatically prosecutes children in military courts that lack basic and fundamental fair trial guarantees. Since 2000, at least 8,000 Palestinian children have been arrested and prosecuted in an Israeli military detention system notorious for the systematic ill-treatment and torture of Palestinian children.
Nabi Saleh is no exception in this regard. Since the demonstrations began, there have been 220 arrests, of which roughly 100 have been of minors and, perhaps even more disturbing, there have been 15 arrests of children under the age of 15. One of the latter is Mohammed Fadal Tamimi, aged 14, who is currently in prison.”

Richard Edmondson reports on his Fig Tree blog: Ahed Tamimi was slated to be part of the No Child Behind Bars/Living Resistance speaking tour that is to tour the US beginning on January 15, 2017, but according to an email sent out yesterday by the Friends of Sabeel North America (FOSNA), she has been denied a visa to enter the country.