02-Oct-15: Truth, honesty, love, murder... and useful idiots

The funerals of Naama Henkin and her husband Eitam, an Israeli couple in their thirties who were shot to death in an Arab-on-Israeli ambush last night while driving home with their four children (four months to nine years old) are underway as we write these words.

They are happening while a highly successful apologist for precisely yesterday's kind of violent, hateful terror acts that took the Henkins' lives is touring the United States on a roadshow inspired, sponsored and principally executed by Amnesty International. 

His name is Bassem Tamimi. We have written about him several times in the course of the past month and earlier.

Here is our translation of a Hebrew-language interview published a month ago. In it, Nariman Tamimi, Bassem's wife and frequent "activism" and "resistance" partner as well as being the mother of the precocious fist-in-the-soldier's-face, teeth-clamped-into-the-soldier's-arm Surly Temper, reveals her not-so-nuanced attitude to murder. She throws light as well on the role murder plays in her town's (more precisely, the Tamimi clan's) media-rich 'struggle'. 

As far as we know, no one else has published an English version. We would be glad to know it is getting some exposure.

The weapons of the Palestinians against the security forces: women and children | Assaf Gibor | NRG | September 1, 2015 | Our unofficial translation from Hebrew 

Nariman Tamimi with her husband the roadshow hero and

their daughter Ahed in a 2013 photo [Image Source]

Nariman Tamimi, mother of Muhammad, the youth who hurled rocks at an IDF fighter in the village of Nabi Saleh, has issued a call to Palestinian women to join in the struggle against the “occupation” and for its liberation. “We knew the media were present and that the army would not arrest women and children, and so I avoided arrest.” 

The latest weapon of the Palestinians? Against the background of Palestinian reports about the investigation and rapid release a short time later of the parents of the Tamimi family from Nabi Saleh - the women who clashed with an IDF fighter have issued a call to Palestinian women to join the fight against the “occupation”. Nariman Tamimi, mother of Muhammad, the boy who hurled rocks at the soldier, and the boy’s aunt Nawal Tamimi, claim the Israeli army will not arrest women and children and that they should therefore join the struggle. 

In the discussion the two women had with nrg in the village of Nabi Saleh, they admitted to being satisfied with their release by the security forces since, in their eyes, it signifies victory. According to their approach, images of the IDF soldier struggling with women from Nabi Saleh last weekend and distributed throughout the world amount to a weapon against Israel. "Our hope is that other women in other villages will see our struggle and the victory, and that they too will join in the fight. When all is said and done, we won. We managed by stubbornness to prevent the soldier from taking my son away," says Nariman, the mother. 

The aunt and the mother made clear that in Friday’s incident, men were also present. They however feared being arrested if they would try to prevent the arrest of Mohammad. They therefore permitted the women to be at the center of the fight. "We knew the media were present, and that the army would not arrest women and children, and so I avoided arrest. We decided to try and prevent his arrest, and we did,” she admitted. 

"Women and children have always been a part of the struggle in Nabi Saleh, as opposed to what has happened in Qadoum, Bil'in and Ni'lin. Here, it’s a cultural thing, something traditional and educational, and also the fact that everyone in our village belongs to the one family numbering about 500 people and in reality there’s no alternative. But we hope that women seeing the photos in the media will understand their power and join in the struggle", she emphasized. The two women explained further that ''When the ‘enemy’ wants to shoot at us, he shoots at everyone without distinction: women, children, men. So we all need to be fighting against the occupation." 

An integral part of the struggle 

One of the major Palestinian murderers who emerged from the village is Ahlam Tamimi who transported the perpetrator of the terror at Jerusalem’s Sbarro pizzeria."What she [Ahlam Tamimi] did was an integral part of the struggle. Everyone fights in the manner in which he believes. There is armed uprising, and there is popular uprising. I support every form of uprising. I personally choose the way of popular uprising," explains mother Nariman.

Ahlam Tamimi, confessed and happy murderer of

children including ours, makes an appearance on

Mrs Bassem Tamimi's Facebook page

And lest anyone fear that Mrs Bassem Tamimi has any actual reservations about the particular form of "uprising" chosen by her cousin, the homicidal sociopath Ahlam Tamimi, a quick glance at the Nariman Facebook page, with images like the one on the right lionizing the multi-murdering, celebrity sociopath Ahlam Tamimi, will soon put that matter to rest. 

For the lethally hateful village of Nabi Saleh, Ahlam Tamimi, the confessed, exultant and entirely unrepentant murderer of our fifteen year-old daughter and more than a dozen other innocents, is a celebrity, a hero, and most of all - a figure to emulate.

But for Amnesty International, well - that's an altogether different story. 

For the extremists who have it and its massive budget in their control, Bassem Tamimi is a celebrity. When he served time in an Israeli jail, Amnesty put its substantial weight and influence behind a campaign that termed him "prisoner of conscience". He and they are leveraging that same bogus marketing claim now as they prepare for a series of roadshow events in the next two weeks. One in the Boston area next week, under the catchy brand "Our destiny is to resist" is typical of the genre. (Resist is a key word in the Tamimi lexicon. Read this to get a sense of its nuances in the world of the Palestinian Arabs.)

Does all this branding, selling, marketing, promoting have an effect? Of course. See for instance a fairy-floss op ed confection that appears today in the town newspaper where Bassem Tamimi's visit was seized upon by his handlers to win over some eight year old school kiddies (the story is here). As becomes clearer with each passing day, innocent little children are a key demographic for certain sorts of people. 

A large crowd accompanies the coffins in the Jerusalem funeral of the murdered Henkin couple today [Image Source]

This superficial article, under the subtle heading "Guest Viewpoint: Tamimi is champion of human rights" is signed off by "Maura Stephens... a Spencer resident". We guess her record in the town where she works, as an advocate for the Palestinian Arabs and other causes of a similar kind speaks for itself. It probably needed no additional elaboration in the Ithaca Journal. She's also Associate Director, Park Center for Independent Media, Department of Journalism, at Ithaca College.

Here's part of her fearless expose of the facts behind the scandalous Bassem Tamimi encounter with grade three children:

Tamimi is the kind of person we want our children to meet. His work revolves around inclusion, love, nonviolence and reconciliation. [Ithaca Schools Commissioner Luvell] Brown’s objection to Tamimi’s sharing of simple truths about life under ongoing oppression in an occupied land is an insult to many who actively champion human rights... Third-graders understand the healing powers of love. They can grieve and sympathize with those who’ve suffered loss. If we won’t speak truth to these children, on whose shoulders so much will soon rest, we’re doing their generation a grave disservice... The message to our children should be that U.S. residents can and should help persecuted people achieve not only self-governance, but also the most basic rights and dignities they lack under the current Israeli regime, which is propped up by our government. If we cannot model such work, we fail our children, our society and our future.

So in the interests of not failing your children, your society and your future - and ours too - will Ms Maura Stephens take these simple questions of ours (below) and put them to her idol of love, nonviolence and reconciliation? We began posing them some weeks ago ["04-Sep-15: Mr. Human Rights Defender, a question if we may"] but Tamimi and his handlers have avoided answering them. Probably they lack Maura Stephens' urge for speaking truth. Or just super busy.

Bassem Tamimi, tell us in simple words: are you as delighted by your cousin Ahlam Tamimi's massacre of Jewish children as she is? Have you criticized it ever, anywhere? Will you condemn it here and now?

The rest of us, very much less convinced than Ms Stephens is of Bassem Tamimi's dedication to love and reconciliation, can probably guess the answers. 

But it's important for the questions to be asked, even if those who proclaim a commitment to truth actually intend for these particular truths to be left under the rug. 

It's also important that the way they are ignored is factored into how we feel about the terror-laundering Tamimi and the useful idiots providing him a platform across the United States.