Would you be appalled if the police broke into your home in the middle of the night, and handcuffed, blindfolded and arrested your minor child and threw her into jail? Of course, you would! According to the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), each year some 700 Palestinian children are arrested, detained, interrogated, and prosecuted by a military court system that allows physical abuse of these young people. Currently, there are about 300 Palestinian children (ages 12 to 17) being held in Israeli jails and prisons. One of them is Ahed Tamimi. On December 19, 2017, she was arrested at 3am in her parents’ house in the small West Bank Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh. Why?
Four days earlier, on December 15, Ahed learned that her 15-year-old cousin, Mohammed Tamimi, had been shot in the face by an Israeli soldier at close range. The rubber-coated steel bullet lodged in his skull and eventually he was taken to a hospital after passing through several Israeli “checkpoints.” His surgery took six hours and while the bullet was removed, and his jaw reconstructed, some of his skull bones had to be removed, which surgeons hope to return in six months.
When he was well enough to walk, the military arrested him and detained him. There was no lawyer, no parent present during the interrogation. Later that day, he signed a confession that his skull injury was due to his “falling off his bicycle.” Sadly, this reveals the perfidy of the Israeli authorities. And, some call this Israeli “justice.” Moreover, the arrest and often brutal beatings of Palestinian children while in jail occurs all too often. Israel is the only “democratic” government in the world to prosecute children (only Palestinians) in so-called “juvenile” military courts whereas Israeli juveniles are tried in Israeli civilian courts.
Is Ahed Tamimi the “Joan of Arc” of Palestine?
by William Thomas