Elor Azaria, who murdered an unconscious wounded Palestinian is released also after 8 months
THIS IS ISRAELI JUSTICE
As she was led away to begin her sentence she shouted 'There is no Justice Under Occupation'. Even during her pre-trial hearings Ahed retained her sense of humour. Asked by the Military Judge how she hit the solder she said, 'take off these handcuffs and I'll show you.' I have written extensively on this and you may wish to refer to my previous articles:
Jewish Chronicle Hits a New Low - A Vile Article Attacking 16 year old Ahed Tamimi,
Ahed Tamimi’s arrest sheds a disturbing light on how children are targeted by Israel,
Ahed Tamimi's lawyer: Her case is making people see the occupation again, Torture couldn’t happen to a Jewish child - 16 year old Ahed Tamimi’s Detention is Extended by Israel's Military Court
Immediately the video of Ahed standing up to the soldiers went viral, there were calls from the racist Education Minister Naftali Bennett for her to 'finish her life in prison'.
The Israeli army kidnapped Ahed in the middle of the night, video photographer accompanying them, awakening her in her house in the early hours of the morning and thus began a 3 month ordeal in which more charges were added to the bill of indictment.
She was prosecuted in a Military Court which has a 99.74% conviction rate. In reality she is being tried by the same army that has arrested and brutalised her. Unlike Israeli children she has no protection, access to parents, social workers etc. She is, like in Nazi Germany, the untermenschen and is treated accordingly.
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| Caspit, the 'liberal' Israeli journalist called for 'a price to be exacted' against Ahed, 'in the dark, without witnesses or cameras' He denies that he meant rape or sexual assault but, as Mandy Rice Davies said, he would wouldn't he?' |
“in the case of the girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras”
Ahed caught the imagination of people world wide and Israel's hasbara propaganda machine couldn't keep up. Instead of a Palestinian in traditional Arab garb with a headscarf, she was an engaging white teenager with blonde hair and an endearing smile.
The kinda kid next door that people can empathise with.
The idiot of a former Ambassador to the USA and now a government minister, Michael Oren couldn't accept this. It was a 'fake family' she was deliberately dressed by her parents in western clothes. Apparently there had been an investigation into the Tamimi family two years ago to establish if they were a real family!
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| As in South Africa under Apartheid or in the Deep South under Jim Crow the penalty for killing a Palestinian is always less than killing the herrenvolk, a Jew |
But as her ordeal dragged on even the Israeli army realised that Israel has suffered massive PR damage. Their treatment of a young Palestinian girl compared to what an Israeli child would experience is so obviously unjust that you would have to be a particularly thick Zionist to not notice.
That is why Fadi Quoran's article below is correct. Israel's military prosecutors had originally intended to put Ahed away for years. They dug up false allegations from years ago but the scale of the international campaign has forced the bastards to back off. In the end holding Ahed was a liability they wanted to be shot of. All the weapons in the world were to no avail against a young girl's courage.
We should treat this as a victory and Ahed herself as a hero. As a 17 year old girl under massive & enormous pressure she refused to answer any questions or co-operate in any way. What a contrast between the Quisling of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and Ahed Tamimi.
That is why Fadi Quoran's article below is correct. Israel's military prosecutors had originally intended to put Ahed away for years. They dug up false allegations from years ago but the scale of the international campaign has forced the bastards to back off. In the end holding Ahed was a liability they wanted to be shot of. All the weapons in the world were to no avail against a young girl's courage.
We should treat this as a victory and Ahed herself as a hero. As a 17 year old girl under massive & enormous pressure she refused to answer any questions or co-operate in any way. What a contrast between the Quisling of the Palestinian Authority Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah and Ahed Tamimi.
The case has shone a light on Israel’s Injustice System. Hence the Israeli military judge decided, against the pleas of the family, that she would be tried in secret as befits a police state. She and her parents were opposed to this because they wanted the light of publicity to expose these racists.
The Military Court decided that the court hearing should be held in secret not for Ahed's benefit but to save their own embarrassment. The army were happy to video her arrest as a way of asuaging the racist Right in Israel but they didn't want the publicity that came with her continued detention.
Of course if a closed trial had really been for her benefit then she would never have been incarcerated in the first place, still less held in pre-trial detention. The lies just keep pouring off the Zionist PR machine.
Israel, like all settler states, is essentially stupid. The cries for revenge against Ahed resounded in Israel but people abroad could not understand the Biblical vengeance being exacted against a female David. It was as if the story of David and the slingshot was being reversed with Goliath demanding his pound of flesh.
The Military Court decided that the court hearing should be held in secret not for Ahed's benefit but to save their own embarrassment. The army were happy to video her arrest as a way of asuaging the racist Right in Israel but they didn't want the publicity that came with her continued detention.
Of course if a closed trial had really been for her benefit then she would never have been incarcerated in the first place, still less held in pre-trial detention. The lies just keep pouring off the Zionist PR machine.
Israel, like all settler states, is essentially stupid. The cries for revenge against Ahed resounded in Israel but people abroad could not understand the Biblical vengeance being exacted against a female David. It was as if the story of David and the slingshot was being reversed with Goliath demanding his pound of flesh.
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| Racist murderer Elor Azaria receives the same sentence as Ahed - Palestinian life is cheap |
Contrast her case with Israeli murderer Elor Azaria. He shot a severely wounded Palestinian in the head whilst he was on the ground. This supporter of the Jewish Nazi Kach movement was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment, which was reduced twice and he was eventually let out after serving little over 8 months. In other words the same sentence as Ahed who is unlikely to have her sentence cut.
You can be sure that this murderous psychopath, who was a hero before he went into prison, was treated like a hero when he was inside. Ahed's treatment by all accounts will be nasty and violent and it is a tribute to her and the hundreds of Palestinian children that they bear it with fortitude.
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To be fair to Ellman and I always try to be fair (!) she was joined by another Labour MP who should go, the detestable right-winger Ian Austin MP, the man who heckled Jeremy Corbyn in the debate on the Chilcott Report. Let us hope that his CLP gets rid of him.
Below is a graphic of the contributions of these two supporters of Palestinian child abuse
You can be sure that this murderous psychopath, who was a hero before he went into prison, was treated like a hero when he was inside. Ahed's treatment by all accounts will be nasty and violent and it is a tribute to her and the hundreds of Palestinian children that they bear it with fortitude.
Labour MPs Louise Ellman and Ian Austin Who Support Child Abuse Should be Expelled
A month ago I was expelled from the Labour Party because I called the execrable Blairite MP Louise Ellman a supporter of Israeli child abuse. The idiot of a barrister, Thomas Ogg, said that I was shaming her. Indeed I was and I intend to continue doing so.To be fair to Ellman and I always try to be fair (!) she was joined by another Labour MP who should go, the detestable right-winger Ian Austin MP, the man who heckled Jeremy Corbyn in the debate on the Chilcott Report. Let us hope that his CLP gets rid of him.
Below is a graphic of the contributions of these two supporters of Palestinian child abuse
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| Both these racists, Ellman and Austin believe that Palestinian children are 'incited' to throw stones at the soldiers who occupy their homes and steal their land. This is of course what every imperialist has argued throughout history. The oppressed would love their oppressors but for the 'inciters'. The real disgrace is that these 2 creatures are still members of the Labour Party |
I have included a number of different reactions as this is an extremely important case. The issue of Israel's child prisoners should be highlighted continuously.
This is Israeli justice – slapping a heavily armed soldier is equivalent to killing a wounded Palestinian
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In Israeli military courts, Palestinian minors always lose
In Israeli civilian courts, detention is always a last resort for a minor. But when it comes to Palestinian minors in Israeli military courts, prison is almost guaranteed.
By Yael Marom
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| Ahed Tamimi in the Ofer prison military court. December 20, 2017. (Oren Ziv/Activestills) |
Israeli authorities have dedicated significant effort in recent years to highlighting the improvements allegedly made in the treatment of Palestinian minors within Israeli military courts in the West Bank.
Among the ostensible achievements are the establishment a juvenile court in the military court system, allowing for the increased involvement of parents in the military justice system, decreasing the length of time a child can be detained before being brought before a judge, and even an abandoned experiment of issuing summonses to Palestinian minors instead of sending an invading force of soldiers to arrest them in their homes in the middle of the night — the common practice today.
A report published by Israeli human rights group B’Tselem on Tuesday argues that these so-called improvements have improved very little. The juvenile military court system system, which uses the tactic of denying bail to pressure over 70 percent of juvenile defendants and their families into accepting plea bargains, has a startling conviction rate that exceeds 95 percent.
The military juvenile courts do not come close to conforming to international standards and conventions signed and implemented by Israel, according to the B’Tselem report. And Israel’s treatment of Palestinian minors contrasts starkly with the treatment Israeli children receive in Israel’s separate, civilian juvenile justice system.
The Israeli army prosecuted 1,046 Palestinian minors in 2014 and 2015, according to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. More than a quarter of those indictments were of children 15 and under. Already in the first two months of 2018, the army arrested 274 Palestinian minors who were thrust into the military court system, according to Palestinian human rights group Addameer.
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| Israeli soldiers arrest a Palestinian youth during a protest against Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, Hebron, West Bank, December 7, 2017. (Wisam Hashlamoun/Flash90) |
One of the most disturbing differences between the Israeli civilian and military juvenile justice systems is that in the Israeli system, arrest and pre-conviction detention is supposed to be a last resort; other options are to be exhausted before resorting to imprisonment. In the military system, to which Palestinian children are subjected, pre-conviction detention (denying bail) is the rule; there are virtually no alternatives to detention, and exceptions are extremely rare.
What this means is that Palestinian minor defendants are faced with the following choice: fight the charges and remain in prison for the duration of their trial or sign a plea deal and get a reduced sentence. Considering the time spent in prison awaiting trial, however, even defendants likely to be acquitted still might spend more time behind bars than if they had just signed a plea deal.
One of the testimonies collected by B’Tselem and published in the new report describes what the system looks like from the perspective of a Palestinian teenager:
Abed Sabah, a 15-year-old from the Jalazun refugee camp near Ramallah, was arrested last August. Soldiers broke into his house at 3:00 a.m. without explaining why. He was handcuffed and blindfolded. According to Abed’s testimony, soldiers beat and cursed him during the drive from his home to the military base. He was detained for several hours overnight at the base, handcuffed and tied to a wooden post outside, forbidden from going to the bathroom. The soldiers took him to a police station in the morning. In the interrogation room, he was questioned about stone-throwing and a pipe bomb. The interrogator permitted him to call his parents but not a lawyer. The interrogator never explained Abed’s rights to him, particularly his right to remain silent.
During this first interrogation, the interrogator pressured Abed to confess to the crimes of which he was accused, saying that it would help him. Abed refused. The interrogator wanted Abed to sign two documents in Hebrew, which Abed did not understand and refused to sign. Abed was then moved to the cell for minors at Ofer Prison, and then to the military court there. The entire ordeal was less than 12 hours — but 12 hours during which he was completely alone. There was no one waiting for him in court either — neither his parents nor a lawyer. Abed said he did not know what the purpose of the hearing was, and when the hearing was over, he was sent back to prison.
Two months later he was brought back to court. A lawyer told him he wanted to sign a deal that would include a sentence of two-and-a-half months — exactly the amount of time Abed had already spent in prison. And so it was. Abed’s parents paid a fine of NIS 2,000, and Abed received another five months of probation. At 7:00 p.m. that night, Abed was informed that he was being released. His brother was waiting for him outside of the prison, but the Israeli authorities instead released him at the Ben Sira checkpoint, where no one waiting. Abed said he used a waiting cab driver’s phone to call his brother, who came and took him home.
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| Israeli soldiers arrest a child during the weekly demonstration in Kfer Qaddum, a West bank village located east of Qalqiliya, on January 25, 2013. |
So what about the improvements Israel has made? B’Tselem addresses them one by one.
Did the decision to require bringing minors before a judge sooner actually change the length of time they spend in pre-conviction detention? First of all, remand and bail hearings are not held in the new juvenile military court, so considerations of the child’s wellbeing are rarely raised — the use of detention as a first resort, as opposed to a last resort, has not changed. Secondly, seeing a judge sooner and more frequently has not led to any discernible reduction in the amount of time spent in detention or the ease with which the courts deny bail, according to the report.
Did the change allowing a greater role for defendants’ parents in the juvenile military court system lead to an improvement in advocacy for the child and their best interests? According to B’Tselem, however, the change is almost entirely symbolic, and parental involvement remains minimal. Parents do not have the right to be present during their children’s interrogation, nor does the army actually update parents on the details of their child’s detention.
The biggest problem is that none of the changes have affected the way Palestinian juveniles are arrested, interrogated, and remanded to custody without bail. As long as the system is designed to churn out confessions that lead to plea deals — and the protections for those earlier stages of custody remain unimplemented — reforms to the trial system inside the new juvenile courts will remain virtually moot. Palestinian children rarely stand trial and the merits and circumstances of their confessions are never critically reviewed by a judge.
Yael Marom is Just Vision’s public engagement manager in Israel and a co-editor of Local Call, where a longer version of this article first appeared in Hebrew. Read it here.
#Occupation
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| Ahed Tamimi, 17, became hero to Palestinians after 15 December incident outside her home (AFP) |
Thursday 22 March 2018 0:33 UTC
Ahed Tamimi, the teenage Palestinian girl who was filmed kicking and slapping an Israeli soldier in the occupied West Bank, accepted a plea deal on Wednesday under which she will be sentenced to eight months in prison, her lawyer said.
Tamimi, 17, became a hero to Palestinians after the 15 December incident outside her home in the village of Nabi Saleh was streamed live on Facebook by her mother and went viral.
The soldiers had deployed during a weekly Palestinian protest in the village against Israeli policy on settlements in the West Bank, one of the most heated issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Tamimi was 16 at the time of the offence. Her trial began last month and she faced 12 charges, including aggravated assault.
"No justice under occupation!" Tamimi, handcuffed and shackled, shouted out to reporters at court in the Ofer military prison, near the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Tamimi's attorney Gaby Lasky said that under the deal approved by the court, Tamimi will plead guilty to a reduced charge sheet that includes assault and would be sentenced to eight months in jail and pay a fine of 5,000 shekels (about $1,430). The Israeli military confirmed the details of the deal.
It broke the stereotyped image of the Palestinian in the international community
- Bassem Tamimi, Ahed's father
Lasky said the jail term included the time Tamimi has spent in detention since her arrest in December.
Tamimi's family are veterans of protests against an Israeli settlement near their home. An Israeli watchtower stands at the entrance to the village and there are often soldiers in the area. Her mother, Nariman, and a cousin were also arrested. Both have accepted plea bargains, a family lawyer said.
"When the European people see my daughter, blonde and blue-eyed, they are shaken, because they saw their children in front of them. It broke the stereotyped image of the Palestinian in the international community,"Tamimi's father, Bassem Tamimi told Reuters.
The images of Tamimi striking the soldier had also made an impact on Israelis, who debated whether the officer should have hit back. The army said the soldier “acted professionally” by showing restraint but right-wing politicians described his behavior as humiliating.
"The honour of Israel's army cannot be trampled" Israeli Culture Minister Miri Regev said on her Facebook page after the incident. "We cannot have a situation in which soldiers are humiliated and hit and they do not act at that moment and arrest those who hurt them."
The Israeli army said in a statement after the sentence that it "will continue operating in order to preserve the security and public order in (the West Bank) and enforce the law as it pertains to anyone who harms (Israeli) soldiers and incites violence."
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| Ahed in court |
Tamimi's trial
Tamimi's trial began on 13 February behind closed doors at the Israeli military court in the West Bank.
Lasky appealed to have the trial opened, but was rejected.
The court ordered the trial closed because Ahed was being tried as a minor, as is usual in such cases.
"When they decided to keep her trial behind closed doors, we knew that we were not going to get a fair trial,"
Lasky told AFP in describing her reasons for seeking a plea bargain.
Lasky told AFP in describing her reasons for seeking a plea bargain.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights has criticised Israeli authorities' actions in the case, while the European Union has expressed concern over Israel's detention of minors, including Ahed Tamimi.
When they decided to keep her trial behind closed doors, we knew that we were not going to get a fair trial
Gaby Lasky, Tamimi's father
"Ahed will be home in a few months, but Israel is putting this child behind bars for eight months for calling for protests and slapping a soldier, after threatening her with years in jail,"
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the Middle East division of Human Rights Watch, said in a statement.
Tamimi's family says the 15 December incident that led to the arrests occurred in the yard of their home in Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah in the West Bank.
The Israeli military said the soldiers were in the area to prevent Palestinians from throwing stones at Israeli motorists.
The video shows the cousins approaching two soldiers and telling them to leave before shoving, kicking and slapping them.
The scuffle took place amid clashes and protests against US President Donald Trump's controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital.
Palestinians want the West Bank for a future state, along with East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip. Most countries consider Israeli settlements built on territory Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war to be illegal.
Israel disputes that its settlements are illegal and says their future should be determined in peace talks with the Palestinians. Negotiations collapsed in 2014 and efforts by the White House to restart them have showed little progress.
Tamimi's case drew global attention. Amnesty International called her the "Rosa Parks of Palestine", and the small courtroom was often packed with journalists, diplomats and international observers during hearings.
A group of American cultural figures, including actors Danny Glover and Rosario Dawson and novelist Alice Walker, signed a petition calling for her release and comparing her case to those of "the children of immigrants and communities of color who face police brutality in the United States".
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Three reasons why Israel backed down, and Ahed Tamimi will walk free
The Israeli military was forced to give in and drop 8 of the charges against Ahed as part of a plea bargain, in which Ahed recognized in court the fact that she slapped the soldier and called for protests. In return, Ahed will get the minimum sentence of 8 months instead of spending at least 3 years in prison based on what the military prosecutor was initially seeking. Lawyers at Ofer Military Court told us we would be lucky if they offered a 2 year plea bargain. But now, Ahed will be out in July — early enough to go to her first year in college. For the next 4 months in prison, Ahed will focus on her studies and take her final year exams. Ahed’s mother, Nariman, will also be released at the same time.
The fact that a child will be jailed for 8 months for slapping a soldier whose troops just shot her 15 year old cousin in the face is extreme, but in the context of the 99% conviction rate in the Israeli military court system and right-wing incitement against Ahed, this compromise by the Israeli military shows they have decided to back down in the face of growing pressure to release Ahed. In fact, they were begging Ahed’s lawyer, Gaby Lasky, to accept the plea bargain.
Below are the 3 main reasons why the Israeli military was forced to back down, and give Ahed the minimum possible sentence:
(1) Ahed refused to be coerced so there wasn’t enough evidence to convict her
Israel subjected Ahed Tamimi to intense military interrogations led by a member of Israel’s military intelligence. The interrogation tactics were meant to coerce her into admitting guilt on the 12 charges brought against her. Detained children, who are often beaten, disoriented, and afraid, end up saying anything the interrogator wants them to — but Ahed courageously maintained her right to remain silent throughout the entire interrogation.
Unable to break Ahed, the Israeli military arrested 10 other Palestinians from Nabi Saleh, 8 of them children. These children also remained steadfast and refused to allow the military to coerce them into giving false testimony to indict Ahed.
Hence, the prosecutor did not have enough evidence to indict Ahed, which made it difficult to complete here trial, especially while it was garnering significant international attention.
(2) Ahed’s case created massive global uproar from citizens to diplomats: millions around the world watched in shock as a 16 year old girl was terrorized, and Israel failed to spin the story.
After a massive right-wing Israeli campaign calling for the arrest, and sometimes even murder, of Ahed, which was followed by her arrest, Ahed quickly became a symbol of Palestinian children.
Dozens of media networks flocked to cover her story, and in so doing shed a spotlight on the detention of Palestinian children in Israeli military courts. Over 1.75 million people around the world took action with Avaaz and demanded that Ahed and Palestinian children be released. Amnesty and Human Rights Watch joined her campaign — and news networks from the BBC to Xinhua, and from CNN to Al Jazeera reported her story.
In an effort to spin the story in Israel’s favor, former Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, claimed that the ‘Tamimi family were actors’, which journalists did not buy. Oren further claimed that the Knesset had a committee investigating the “authenticity” of the family, which was quietly ridiculed in diplomatic circles as a sign of Israel’s paranoia and its inability to humanize Palestinians.
In a last ditch effort to defame the Tamimi family, 15 year old Mohammad Tamimi, whose skull was shattered when a soldier shot him in his face, was arrested. Ahed slapped the soldier because she heard her cousin Mohammad was shot and in critical condition — and that story intensified global support for her case. The Israeli military interrogated Mohammad and successfully coerced him into saying he got his head injury (a third of his skull was missing and he needed surgery to replace it) from falling off of a bicycle. Major General Yoav Mordecai posted Mohammad’s “confession” on his Facebook page. However, the Tamimi family quickly released x-rays, footage, and hospital records that proved without a doubt that Mohammad was shot, forcing the military to retract.
Mohammad Tamimi — skull shattered by a bullet fired from an Israeli soldier during protests in Nabi Saleh. His injury led Ahed to confront, and slap, the soldiers firing at kids from her home’s front porch.
Diplomatically, many nations that were already worried about the ill-treatment of Palestinian children in Israeli military prisons spoke up. The EU said it was “deeply concerned” about the arrest of minors. Diplomats from around the world were mobilised to watch Ahed’s hearing, with representatives from Germany, France, Belgium, Spain, and many others attending her trial.
(3) Ahed’s arrest was supposed to deter Palestinian youth but instead it inspired them to organise
The Israeli military hoped that the arrest of Ahed would deter the youth of Nabi Saleh (Ahed’s village) and Palestinians across the region from protesting. What happened was the opposite: The youth were inspired by Ahed’s agency, and protests in Nabi Saleh and elsewhere became larger and more intense.
Youth from the villages around Nabi Saleh also joined its protests. And Palestinian students began the process of organising a #March_for_our_freedom. Fearing further upheaval, and unwilling to make Ahed a bigger hero, the Israeli military was forced to give in and drop 8 of the charges against Ahed. Instead of spending over 3 years in prison based on what they had initially pursued, she will now be out in July — early enough to go to her first year in college. The only thing she was booked for were the things in the video — slapping a soldier and calling for protests. They dropped the charge of inciting to bombings and stabbings for her and her mother, and the charge of stone throwing. For the next 4 months in prison, Ahed will focus on her studies and take her final year exam.
It is essential that we tell Ahed’s story as it is, one of steadfastness in prison and a failure by the military to break her. In court, Ahed said: “There is no justice under occupation.” She’s right, and that’s why this plea deal, as unfair as it is, was the best she could hope for and the biggest possible compromise the Israeli military, under pressure, could give. There are 356 children, all like Ahed, still in military confinement. Every year over 750 children are arrested. Let’s continue to take action until they are all free.
Check out the HUGE campaign to free Ahed and all Palestinian children here: