Ahed Tamimi is a 16 year old Palestinian girl from Nabi Saleh, a small village in the West Bank which doggedly resists Israel’s theft of their lands and water.
Many family members have been killed, and her mother arrested five times. From an early age Ahed was always in the front of regular Friday protests fearless in confronting well armed soldiers who regularly intimidate this family and other residents.
Recently, when the soldiers invaded the Tamimi backyard and shot her cousin Mohammed in the head with a rubber bullet at point blank range, Ahed slapped their faces.
She told reporter Aby Martin, ’All my family here is in danger, we are at risk of dying at any moment. At anytime I can expect a soldier coming towards me to shoot me and kill me. This feeling affects us permanently. This feeling cannot be explained or put into words. Those who do not live our suffering cannot understand it, and no one can translate it into words.’
Ahed’s mother has been charged with incitement for simply uploading the video of her daughter’s slap to social media.
When the military returned in the middle of the night they violently arrested Ahed, her mother, aunt and 20-year-old cousin.
Ahed, like all Palestinians, is charged under military law but Israelis are governed by civil law.
While Ahed faces a long jail term, okay Israeli Yifat Alkobi arrested for stoning Palestinians, escapes jail despite five prior convictions for throwing rocks and assaulting police.
The international campaign to free Ahed calls for letters to be written to all MPs but, in the case of the Turnbull government, this is likely to fall on deaf ears because, in April 2017 they bowed to Zionist pressure and banned Ahed’s father Bassem, from entering Australia.
Gareth W R Smith, Palestine Liberation Centre, Byron Bay