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Why is the West praising Malala, but ignoring Ahed?
Ahed Tamimi, a 16-year-old Palestinian girl, was recently arrested in a night-time raid on her home. The Israeli authorities accuse her of "assaulting" an Israeli soldier and an officer. A day earlier she had confronted Israeli soldiers who had entered her family's backyard. The incident happened shortly after a soldier shot her 14-year-old cousin in the head with a rubber bullet, and fired tear-gas canisters directly at their home, breaking windows.
Her mother and cousin were arrested later as well. All three remain in detention.
There has been a curious lack of support for Ahed from Western feminist groups, human rights advocates and state officials who otherwise present themselves as the purveyors of human rights and champions of girls' empowerment.
Their campaigns on empowering girls in the global South are innumerable: Girl Up, Girl Rising, G(irls)20 Summit, Because I am a Girl, Let Girls Learn, Girl Declaration.
When 15-year-old Pakistani activist Malala Yousafzai was shot in the head by a member of Tehrik-e-Taliban, the reaction was starkly different. Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, issued a petition entitled "I am Malala." The UNESCO launched "Stand Up For Malala."
Malala was invited to meet then President Barack Obama, as well as the then UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, and addressed the UN General Assembly. She received numerous accolades from being named one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time magazine and Woman of the Year by Glamour magazine to being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013, and again in 2014 when she won.
State representatives such as Hillary Clinton and Julia Gillard as well as prominent journalists such as Nicholas Kristof spoke up in support of her. There is even a Malala Day!
But we see no #IamAhed or #StandUpForAhed campaigns making headlines. None of the usual feminist and rights groups or political figures has issued statements supporting her or reprimanding the Israeli state. No one has declared an Ahed Day. In fact, the US in the past has even denied her a visa for a speaking tour.
Ahed, like Malala, has a substantial history of standing up against injustices. She has been protesting the theft of land and water by Israeli settlers. She has endured personal sacrifice, having lost an uncle and a cousin to the occupation. Her parents and brother have been arrested time and again. Her mother has been shot in the leg. Two years ago, another video featuring her went viral - this time she was trying to protect her little brother from being taken by a soldier.
Why isn't Ahed a beneficiary of the same international outcry as Malala? Why has the reaction to Ahed been so different?
There are multiple reasons for this deafening silence. First among them is the widespread acceptance of state-sanctioned violence as legitimate. Whereas hostile actions of non-state actors such as the Taliban or Boko Haram fighters are viewed as unlawful, similar aggression by the state is often deemed appropriate.
This not only includes overt forms of violence such as drone attacks, unlawful arrests, and police brutality, but also less obvious assaults such as the allocation of resources, including land and water. The state justifies these actions by presenting the victims of its injustices as a threat to the functioning of the state.
Once declared a threat, the individual is easily reduced to bare life - a life without political value. Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben has described this as a time/place sanctioned by sovereign power where laws can be suspended; this individual can therefore now be made a target of sovereign violence. Terrorists often fall within this category. Thus, the execution of suspected terrorists through drone attacks without due judicial process ensues without much public uproar.
The Israeli police have deployed a similar strategy here. They have argued for extendingAhed's detention because she "poses a danger" to soldiers (state representatives) and could obstruct the functioning of the state (the investigation).
Casting unarmed Palestinians like Ahed - who was simply exercising her right to protect her family's wellbeing with all the might of her 16-year-old hand - in the same light as a terrorist is unfathomable. Such framings open the way for authorising excessive torture - Israel's education minister Naftali Bennett, for instance, wants Ahed and her family to "finish their lives in prison."
Ahed's suffering also exposes the West's selective humanitarianism, whereby only particular bodies and causes are deemed worthy of intervention.
Anthropologist Miriam Ticktin argues that while the language of morality to alleviate bodily suffering has become dominant in humanitarian agencies today, only particular kinds of suffering bodies are read as worthy of this care.This includes the exceptionally violated female body and the pathologically diseased body.
Such a notion of suffering normalises labouring and exploited bodies: "these are not the exception, but the rule, and hence are disqualified."
Issues of unemployment, hunger, threat of violence, police brutality, and denigration of cultures are thus often not considered deserving of humanitarian intervention. Such forms of suffering are seen as necessary and even inevitable. Ahed, therefore, does not fit the ideal victim-subject for transnational advocacy.
Relatedly, girls like Ahed who critique settler colonialism and articulate visions of communal care are not the empowered femininity that the West wants to valourise. She seeks justice against oppression, rather than empowerment that benefits only herself.
Her feminism is political, rather than one centred on commodities and sex. Her girl power threatens to reveal the ugly face of settler-colonialism, and hence is marked as "dangerous". Her courage and fearlessness vividly render all that is wrong with this occupation.
Ahed's plight should prompt us to interrogate our selective humanitarianism. Individuals who are victims of state violence, whose activism unveils the viciousness of power, or whose rights advocacy centres communal care, deserve to be included in our vision of justice.
Even if we don't launch campaigns for Ahed, it is impossible for us to escape her call to witness the mass debilitation, displacement and dispossession of her people. As Nelson Mandela said, "We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians."
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio ... 06359.html
Suntzu wrote:Not a lot of support for Palestinian terrorists in general in the West.
Ter wrote:Ahed on the other hand wishes for more stabbings and suicide bombings to be carried out.
Ter wrote:propaganda as per the usual.
skinster wrote:At least 1.7 million people disagree with you, which suggests you could be wrong, and are wrong. Ahed has a right to defend herself according to UN resolutions. The law does not recognize Israel's rule over the occupied territories, the settlements there are illegal. The military courts in the West Bank are not legit since that are is considered Palestinian territory. This illegitimate court is criminalizing Ahed for defending herself from the aggression of an occupying army that should not be there. This is why Ahed has worldwide support. This is also why Palestinians have worldwide support. Including from shitloads of Jews; a number that will only increase as more learn the real story of what Israel is. Get used to it. Young American Jews shut down the AIPAC conference in DC last year. The future is looking bleak for your ilk.
It's not just that the Palestinians are in the right, but the law recognizes Palestinians right to defend themselves. You are wrong, Ter. You've always been wrong on this subject, and unfortunately it looks like you're not willing to see reason, not willing to understand why Palestinians would resist occupation (as any group in their position would), you don't want to consider why so many Jews and even Israelis support the Palestinian position.
You are supporting neonazis in our modern world. You are supporting slavery in our present time. You are wrong.
skinster wrote:Ter doing exactly what I talked about, I am so very surprised.
South Florida rallies for Ahed Tamimi and Palestine
At the protest, activists held signs that read, “Free all children from occupation,” and “Stand up for Ahed and all of Palestine.” As they congregated along the sidewalk along the busy intersection at Broward Boulevard and SE 3rd street, the group shouted chants such as, “Jail Bibi, free Tamimi!” and “IDF, what do you say? How many kids you kill today?”
After about an hour of chanting and sign-waving, the group gathered to hear speeches from various organizations. Donna Nevel, a lead organizer with Jewish Voice for Peace, was one of those who addressed the crowd.
“We stand firmly with the Palestinian people and join them in their calls for justice, to live in their homes and on their land without constant violence and abuse at the hands of the Israeli government,” Nevel said. “We stand with Ahed Tamimi and her family and the people of her village, Nabi Saleh, who are courageously resisting injustice!”
Thousands of Palestinians remain in Israeli occupation prisons under phony charges or without having been formally charged with any crimes. In these prisons, they are often subjected to harsh conditions, threats against their families, and torture. It is in these same prisons that the Israeli Defense Forces lock up young Palestinian children for throwing rocks at armored tanks, attending protests, or simply being related to politically active people.
Young Palestinians standing up against the Israeli government and its soldiers are forming a new threat to the Israeli establishment. They are deciding to fight back against the U.S. insistence that Palestinians accept a fate doled out to them by imperialist U.S. and apartheid Israel. Ahed Tamimi is a symbol of the new resistance, born and raised under occupation, violence and war; refusing to accept anything but a totally free Palestine.
As the chants died down in Fort Lauderdale, the protesters reaffirmed their commitment to do their part as activists in the U.S, to combat U.S foreign policy that does harm to children and all others in Palestine and in countries throughout the world.
The protest was organized by a coalition of various groups including POWIR, Al-Awda South Florida, Jewish Voice for Peace South Florida, National Lawyers Guild Miami and Friends of Sabeel South Florida
https://www.fightbacknews.org/2018/2/5/ ... -palestine
skinster wrote:You can beg for condemnation of X or Y all you like, you won't get it, because I don't play zionist games, didn't you notice? Not to mention how this dumb line of interrogation is unrelated to the topic at hand.
In UK Parliament debate yesterday, Israel said to be committing ‘torture’, ‘war crimes’
Israel’s abuse and mistreatment of Palestinian children in military detention was under the spotlight in Westminster yesterday, as MPs urged it to end the “torture” of minors.
Israeli authorities were also charged with war crimes, over the imprisonment of both children and adults from the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) inside Israel’s pre-1967 lines, a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The Westminster Hall debate on “Military detention of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities” was initiated by Labour MP Sarah Champion, and attracted cross-party participation.
In her speech, Champion noted Israel’s failure to implement recommendations made since 2012 by both UNICEF and a UK government-sponsored delegation; out of 40 specific recommendations made by the latter, covering “arrest, interrogation, bail hearings, plea bargaining, trials, sentencing, detention, complaints and monitoring”, only one has been implemented by Israeli authorities.
Thus, she stressed, the situation remains largely the same as it was when UNICEF described how “the ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalised throughout the process, from the moment of arrest until the child’s prosecution and eventual conviction and sentencing.”
Israel’s abuse and mistreatment of Palestinian children in military detention was under the spotlight in Westminster yesterday, as MPs urged it to end the “torture” of minors.
Israeli authorities were also charged with war crimes, over the imprisonment of both children and adults from the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) inside Israel’s pre-1967 lines, a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The Westminster Hall debate on “Military detention of Palestinian children by Israeli authorities” was initiated by Labour MP Sarah Champion, and attracted cross-party participation.
In her speech, Champion noted Israel’s failure to implement recommendations made since 2012 by both UNICEF and a UK government-sponsored delegation; out of 40 specific recommendations made by the latter, covering “arrest, interrogation, bail hearings, plea bargaining, trials, sentencing, detention, complaints and monitoring”, only one has been implemented by Israeli authorities.
Houses of the Parliament, UK
Thus, she stressed, the situation remains largely the same as it was when UNICEF described how “the ill-treatment of children who come in contact with the military detention system appears to be widespread, systematic and institutionalised throughout the process, from the moment of arrest until the child’s prosecution and eventual conviction and sentencing.”
The Labour MP touched upon a number of specific issues, including the terrifying practice of night-time raids of Palestinian homes, forced confessions, and lack of access to a lawyer: citing Military Court Watch statistics, Champion noted that four out of five Palestinian children do not have access to a lawyer prior to interrogation at the hands of Israeli occupation forces.
Champion pointed to the 95 per cent conviction rate in Israel’s military courts, and the role of confessions. Citing an “expert psychiatric opinion” commissioned by Physicians for Human Rights Israel, the Labour MP noted that Palestinian children are led into making false confessions through the use of physical and psychological methods that “are equivalent to torture”.
Indeed, Champion noted: “The UK report noted that if the process of arrest and interrogation is occurring to a significant extent as described, Israel would be in breach of the absolute prohibition on torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”
The debate also heard how Israel’s policy of “transferring Palestinian detainees—adults and children—from the West Bank to prisons located in Israel” is a “violation of Article 76 of the Fourth Geneva Convention”, an activity classed “as a war crime”. In 2017, 83 per cent of adult detainees and 61 per cent of child detainees were “transferred and detained unlawfully”.
Interestingly, Champion asked the government to “ascertain how many UK citizens are currently involved, directly or indirectly, with the unlawful transfer and detention of Palestinian prisoners outside the occupied territory”, and asked “what measures will he take in respect of those individuals in accordance with the law?”
Among the MPs to contribute to the debate was Andy Slaughter (Labour, Hammersmith), who said that he met a Palestinian family during a visit to the region last year, whose “young son had been seized in the middle of the night” and subsequently placed in administrative detention – “detention without charge for unlimited periods”.
MP Marsha De Cordova (Battersea) drew attention to “the journey of a child living under military occupation and what they will endure—the physical violence, the fear, the complete interruption of their life, and the huge swathes of time spent in detention”, adding it was “clear” that the Israeli “system is designed to repress, crush and intimidate generation after generation of Palestinians”.
The new Labour MP also expressed “solidarity with Ahed Tamimi”, telling the debate: “Yesterday we celebrated the brave women in the UK who fought for their rights, often suffering the brutalities of the police and state as a consequence. Ahed Tamimi carries that flame forward for all young children such as her across the world—solidarity.”
A number of MPs known for their Israel advocacy also spoke in the debate, seeking to draw attention away from the specific policies being discussed and instead suggested Israel was being “singled out” unfairly. Their contributions were often openly derided by those present, for their transparently disingenuous recitation of familiar talking points.
Foreign Office minister Alistair Burt, responding on behalf of the government, confirmed that the Israeli government had indeed only implemented one of 40 specific recommendations made by leading British lawyers in their report “Children in Military Custody”. He said that UK authorities “have repeatedly and publicly called on Israel to fulfil its international legal obligations”.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20180 ... ar-crimes/
skinster wrote:How tough are you, Ter, threatening towards a girl living under military occupation. No shame either. This is zionism.
Protests in New Zealand for Ahed Tamimi and Palestinian prisoners
Here are videos of the speeches at the Auckland rally last Saturday, part of the nationwide ‘Day of Action’ for Free Palestine that focused on the demand for the release of Ahed Tamimi and all child detainees and other political prisoners held in Israeli jails. The rally also supported actions to boycott Apartheid Israel and NZ participation in the 2018 freedom flotilla to break Israel’s illegal blockade of Gaza...
https://kiaoragaza.wordpress.com/2018/0 ... prisoners/
Ter wrote:A lot of words, yet you refuse to state that cutting children's throats at night whilst they are sleeping in their beds is a terrorist act, a heinous murder, not to be tolerated under any circumstances. Yet the terrorists who commit those crimes are celebrated by the Arabs, they name streets after them and put their faces on posters, name buildings after them and what have you.
All you can say is "the right of resistance", "UN resolutions", and so on.
Can you show us a UN resolution that allows cutting children's throats?
Empty talk about "resistance" won't do.
As long as the Arabs are not willing to accept Israel as a Jewish State within certain borders, there is no hope of a solution.
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