Response to stone-throwers – lock them all up for at least 3 years


November 6, 2015
Sarah Benton

stone throwingAn Electronic Intifada article on Bassem Tamimi follows the Al Jazeera piece on the new penalty for stone-throwing.
Does publishing these photogenic images of stone-throwers constitute incitement? This one from Al Jazeera’s article below, by Mohamad Torokman/Reuters

Israel passes ‘minimum sentence’ for stone-throwers

New legislation establishes three-year minimum sentence and will also punish parents of children convicted of offence.

By Patrick Strickland, Al Jazeera
November 03, 2015

Israel has passed an amendment to the country’s civil law establishing a minimum prison sentence of three years for people who throw rocks at Israeli troops, civilians or vehicles.

Passed late on Monday night by a vote of 51-17, the legislation includes a number of provisions, among them one that permits the government to strip those convicted of stone throwing of their state benefits.

In effect, the move will further entrench Israeli civil law in occupied East Jerusalem, according to rights groups.

Palestinians in the rest of the occupied West Bank, however, are subject to Israeli military law.

The law also enables Israel to cancel national health insurance and other social programmes for the parents of an imprisoned minor.

Rima Awad, a member of the Campaign for Jerusalem, a Palestinian rights group, said that Israel is “collectively punishing” Palestinian Jerusalemites.

“The families of the accused are also being punished,” Awad told Al Jazeera.

‘Extraordinary step’

“Setting minimum sentences is an extraordinary step,” the law’s preface reads. “But the uniqueness of the phenomenon [of rock-throwing] and its scale, which have expanded of late, justify as an extraordinary measure the establishment of minimum punishments in this case as a temporary provision.”


Mourners carry the body of 22-year-old Palestinian Ibrahim Skafi in Hebron, November 5th. He allegedly rammed his car into Israeli troops the day before, killing no-one but injuring two soldiers. He was shot dead on the spot. Photo by Wisam Hashlamoun /APA images

The move comes on the heels of widespread unrest, as an increase in Palestinian protests against Israel’s ongoing occupation have given way to frequent clashes across the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and the besieged Gaza Strip.

As the unrest spreads, Israeli forces have responded with force, using live ammunition, rubber-coated steel bullets, tear gas and stun grenades.

Since October 1, Israeli forces or settlers have killed at least 73 Palestinians, including unarmed protesters, bystanders and accused attackers.

Meanwhile, nine Israelis have been killed by Palestinians in stabbing or shooting incidents in the same period.

The new law is one of a series of measures aiming to quell the protests.


Israeli police arrest a Palestinian youth  during clashes in the East Jerusalem  neighbourhood of Issawiya, September 13,  2015. Photo by AFP.

More than 1,600 Palestinians – an estimated 60 percent of them minors – have been arrested since the beginning of last month, according to the Palestinian Prisoners Club.

A large number of those arrests are for allegedly throwing rocks.

Arguing in favour of the law, Israeli legislator Nissan Slomiansky – a member of the ultra-nationalist Jewish Home party – said it is designed “to create deterrence”, local media reported.

Children vulnerable

Ayed Abu Qtaish, advocacy director for Defence for Children International (DCI) – Palestine, said the legislation will have “an even more harmful effect” on Palestinian children, who are often “detained arbitrarily” or arrested without reliable evidence of accusations.

According to DCI-Palestine’s statistics, at least 53 percent of Palestinian children in East Jerusalem arrested by Israeli forces are subjected to violence, while 86 percent are coerced into signing confessions in Hebrew, a language they do not know.

“These laws affect children more than others because they are a vulnerable segment of the population,” Abu Qtaish told Al Jazeera.

“Additionally, Palestinians in an occupied territory should not be included under Israel’s civil law.”

Abu Qtaish said there is a “double standard at play”, arguing that Israelis, including settlers and children, “throw rocks at Palestinians and other people” without being arrested at similar rates.

The law will also affect the estimated 1.7 million Palestinians who carry Israeli citizenship and live in areas across the country.

Jamal Zahalka, a Knesset member from the Arab-majority Joint List electoral coalition, decried the law as “fuel on the fire”.

“There is no logic to punishing a father whose son threw a stone and didn’t hit anything, while the father of a child who stabs his friend in school goes unpunished.”

Follow Patrick Strickland on Twitter: @P_Strickland_



Palestinians in East Jerusalem hurl stones at Israeli police following the death of Mohammed Sinokrot, aged 16. In September 2015 he was shot with a rubber bullet at close range and died later. Photo by AFP.

Throwing stones is part of Palestine’s struggle

Jesse Rubin, The Electronic Intifada
October 05, 2015

The routine brutality of Israeli troops was captured in a recent video from the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh. It showed 12-year-old Muhammad Tamimi being violently arrested.

The widely shared images illustrate the stark imbalance between Israel and the Palestinians. Here was a heavily armed soldier abusing a frightened and unarmed child.


The arrest of Muhammed Tamimi for stone-throwing. He was famously rescued by his sister and two women relatives.

Predictably, Israel and its supporters have tried to blame Muhammad’s family and neighbours for what he endured. Miri Regev, Israel’s openly racist culture minister, has even argued that the women who came to the boy’s aid should have been shot.

Vilified

Muhammad’s father Bassem is currently on a speaking tour in the US, where he has been vilified by some media outlets because he plays a prominent role in Nabi Saleh’s regular protests against the Israeli occupation. The Washington Free Beacon, a right-wing website, has alleged that Bassem uses his own children “to taunt Israeli soldiers” so that the soldiers’ behaviour can be filmed.

It is one of several publications to suggest that the rock-throwing which has been known to occur during political demonstrations in Nabi Saleh provokes a violent response from Israel.

Such claims echo the rhetoric of the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared a “war” against young Palestinians who throw stones.

During the last few weeks, the Israeli government has approved tougher penalties for stone throwers. It has also broadened rules allowing soldiers to fire at protesters.

Until now, soldiers were, supposedly, permitted to open fire only if they were in danger. Because of the new changes, they will be able to shoot at protesters if anyone in the vicinity is considered a risk.

More than likely, this will lead to higher numbers of young Palestinians being killed.


Bassem Tamimi at an Israeli military court in April 2011. Photo by Oren Ziv ActiveStills

In an interview with The Electronic Intifada, Bassem Tamimi pointed out that throwing stones is a tactic that has long been used by Palestinians living under Israeli occupation. Many Palestinians view throwing stones at the Israeli military as a form of unarmed resistance.

“Yes, we use stones to protect our land and our kids,” he said. “It is part of our way of struggle.”

Contrary to the impression conveyed by pro-Israel publications, it is not the youth of Nabi Saleh who provoke violence. Rather, the main source of violence is the Israeli occupation.

On the day of his son’s arrest in September, Israeli troops fired “rubber bullets, tear gas everywhere,” said Bassem. Those weapons have caused death and injuries to many Palestinians.

Bassem Tamimi is a member of Fatah, the dominant party in the Palestinian Authority.

Bassem was arrested by Israeli forces in 2011. Following a trial in a military court, he was convicted of organizing protests that Israel views as illegal and of encouraging young people to throw stones.

Beaten into coma

In 1993, he was arrested on suspicion of having killed an Israeli settler.

During interrogation, he was beaten so badly by Israeli prison officers that he entered a coma, which lasted about a week.

Bassem believes that Israel used his involvement in Fatah and his connection to his cousin, Rushdi Muhammad Said Tamimi, as excuses to arrest him. His cousin was subsequently found guilty of killing Haim Mizrahi, an Israeli living in Beit El, a Jewish-only settlement in the West Bank.

(Another man named Rushdi Tamimi was killed by Israeli soldiers during a protest in Nabi Saleh in 2012.)

Bassem himself was acquitted.

His sister Bassama died after going to visit him during his detention in Ramallah. She was reportedly pushed down a staircase by an interpreter working for the Israeli military, breaking her neck as a result.

Bassem Tamimi has reflected a great deal about how Palestinians should tackle Israel.

“I started changing my belief from violent resistance to nonviolent resistance” around 11 or 12 years ago, he said.

“International law gives us the right to resist by any means, but the means must serve the goal,” he added.

Tamimi encourages Palestinians to study the methods of protest used by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr during the US civil rights era, as well as the international mobilization against apartheid in South Africa.

Grassroots organizing should be the focus of the Palestinian struggle, rather than talks with Israel, he argued. The “peace process” in which the political elite has been engaged since the 1990s has not benefited ordinary Palestinians.

In the few decades since the Oslo accords, Israel has stepped up its colonization of the West Bank, subjected Gaza to a siege and periodic bombing, and exacerbated its discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel.

“Twenty-two years of negotiations led to nothing, just more loss for the Palestinians,” said Tamimi.

Although President Barack Obama has increased US military aid to Israel, Tamimi feels that the American public is becoming more sympathetic towards the Palestinians’ plight. Palestine is one of the key focuses of activism on US campuses, for example.

“America is the guard of Israel,” he said, “And Israel is a guard of American interests in the region. But we can and must distinguish between the state and the population if we are to win this struggle.”

Jesse Rubin is a freelance journalist from New York. Twitter: @JesseJDRubin

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