Nariman, Bassem and Ahed Tamimi of Nabi Saleh [Image Source] |
We have more than the regular amount of interest in the in-your-face bigotry and incitement-to-extreme-violence of the loathsome Tamimi clan of Nabi Saleh. We have explained why over and again in past posts.
But for anyone fresh to this blog or to us – the parents of Malki Roth – or to the news industry’s sickening and highly-selective fixation with the nedia-centric doings of the Tamimis, we suggest to start here:
- 24-Dec-17: Nabi Saleh, the media and a Tamimi child’s journey
- 19-Dec-17: Uncovering some of Nabi Saleh’s hideous buried secrets
- 01-Sep-15: A tale of two villages: one devoted to non-violence, another that actually exists
- 29-Aug-15: Revisiting a Palestinian Arab village and its monsters
- 17-Mar-13: A little village in the hills, and the monsters it spawns
With the background in mind, think now about the stream of news articles during the past six weeks that have delivered up softball versions of Tamimi analysis, driven by another (in a long series) of self-engineered “clashes” with the IDF in which the star is, as always, the always-carefully-coiffed Ahed Tamimi.
It’s not the poor reporting per se that is so enraging but the absence of two key elements that if disclosed would have put a fully-justified violent frame around (gritting our teeth) the charming portrait of a blonde girl with curls:
- The connection between Ahed Tamimi and her idol, Ahlam Tamimi with whom she is related closely and in multiple ways and at whose 2015 wedding (to Ahed’s cousin) little Ahed danced and gazed worshipfully at the bride.
- The terrorism-rich personal credo that the adorable Ahed recently recorded for her mother’s video camera and which no reporter should ever dare to ignore in telling news-consumers the things worth knowing about this not-exactly-new “new face of Palestinian resistance”.
Ahed Tamimi captured by her mother’s video camera, responding to her mother’s request to share “a message to the world”, December 15, 2017 [Source: YouTube] |
The historian and analyst Petra Marquardt-Bigman has followed the violent Tamimi clan for some years. Here’s what she knows, but CBC’s man does not:
As reported by media around the world, Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian teenager, has been charged by Israeli authorities with assault, after she was filmed by her family kicking, punching and slapping Israeli soldiers in mid-December.
Nariman Tamimi, Ahed’s mother, live-streamed the incident and its aftermath on her Facebook page. About seven minutes into the video, when the soldiers Ahed had attacked – supported by her mother and a cousin – had left, Ahed was asked by her mother to send a “message to the world.” As you can see in this subtitled clip, Ahed seemed embarrassed for a moment, but then she responded by dutifully repeating the slogans she had grown up with.
“I wish that everybody would participate in demonstrations because that is the only way for us to get results; because our strength is in our stones; and I wish that everybody all over the world would unite so we can liberate Palestine, because Trump must bear responsibility for the decision he took for any Palestinian reaction – be it stabbings, martyrdom-seeking operations [i.e. suicide bombings], throwing stones – everyone must do something. So we can unite this way, so we can get our message across in the required way and get this result, that is the liberation of Palestine, Allah willing.”
As shocking as it is to hear a girl who is just approaching her 17th birthday (on January 31) to casually list “stabbings” and “martyrdom-seeking operations” among the actions she wants others to take in support of her cause, there is no doubt that Ahed’s mother was pleased to hear her daughter express exactly the views she had been taught throughout her childhood. [From “Advocates for Terror: Why Ahed Tamimi and Her Family are No Heroes“, Petra Marquardt-Bigman for The Tower, January 5, 2018]
June 16, 2012: Ahed Tamimi on stage in Amman, Jordan, gazes longingly at her role-model cousin and Nabi Saleh’s pride and joy, the boastful and confessed murderer-who-got-away-with-it Ahlam Tamimi. The occasion is the wedding of the Tamimi woman with another Nabi Saleh murderer (who is also the bride’s cousin as well as little Ahed’s cousin), Nizar Tamimi, the male in the photo. Everyone in the picture is a blood-relative of everyone else. [Image Source] |
There’s another aspect to the journalistic wrong done by the Canadian: the absence of background. How did we get here? What caused this innocent child to develop her ideas, her attitudes, her fists?
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