Ahed has no fear--NO FEAR. Her hair alone, the likes of which have not been seen around here since Samson, could hold its own against a squad, if not a platoon of Israeli soldiers.
I think the soldiers actually have a grudging respect for her and her family. They might be enemies, but they know what they're really doing there, and they know Ahed and her family are doing precisely what they'd do in her position, if they had the courage.
...But if the afternoon is getting late and Shabbat and the weekend are beckoning, the soldiers' fuses invariably get short. At some point the commander calls or signals her father or another family elder in some way and lets them know it's time to go home, the play is over. Usually the adults try to disperse the crowd at that point. The international activists and the Israelis as well as the older Palestinians usually begin marching up the hill, more or less out of breath from the tear gas but not too much the worse for wear. One or two might be hunched over or have big welts from being hit by plastic coated steel bullets, but if they weren't shot at too close range, or in the eye, the injury isn't too serious. The kids stick around and throw a few more stones, but it all fizzles out soon enough.
Solidarity and love pervades the air, at least among the Nabi Saleh defenders. If you're predisposed to hope, in these moments of quiet you might catch a glimpse of a post-colonial, post-Apartheid future for Palestine/Israel.
It's the closest to Selma most Americans there could ever hope to get, and in that sense it's truly like reliving history. Because Nabi Saleh is, in a way, Selma.
Last time LeVine was there, he said he "misread the wind and got lost in a cloud and, for the first time there, felt like I was going to die. The gas paralyzed me, I could neither breathe nor move, and I literally sunk to the ground watching my life go by, before a small hand reach into the haze from above, grabbed me, and with a strength I still can't comprehend, literally pulled me up the hill above it. The hand belonged to Ahed's cousin Muhammad, then around 11 or 12. The same Muhammad shot in the head earlier in the day when Ahed confronted Israeli soliders responsible for his injuries for which she is now being detained."
RT @AlTamimiAhed: My name is Mohammad Al Tamimi, I'm 15, I was shot in the head, and My head is Shattered by IDF Bullet
Just before Palest… at
— Yasin Çetiner (@CetineryYasin) February 2, 2018LeVine continues to share his witnessing:
"Most everyone in the family (of Tamimis) has been beaten, arrested, and even shot. Ahed and her young kin as well as the women of her village are usually left to fight the Israeli soldiers because if an adult man were to go anywhere near a soldier he'll be shot dead without a second thought.
"If you scroll through the videos on the Nabi Saleh YouTube channel you'll find innumerable videos of midnight raids by Israeli soldiers, of attacks with "sh*t water" that is sprayed for no reason all over the village and even inside their home, of family members being dragged away into custody for no reason.
...Believe me when I tell you that you have no idea what life is like for the people of Nabi Saleh, even when you've spent many Fridays with them. Or for the people of Bil'in, or the Jordan Valley, or Jenin, or the Hebron Hills. Never mind Gaza.
Simply put, we get to leave. They are fighting for their futures, for their lives.
...I can understand why Bassem watches with pride through the tears as his daughter becomes a leader of the Palestinian struggle before the world's eyes. What I can't imagine is how Israelis can watch as their children arrest, beat, shoot, and otherwise humiliate and oppress Ahed's family and the entire Palestinian people.
...Let me be clear: I don't want my kids anywhere near the violence and hatred I've witnessed in Israel/Palestine, but if I were forced to choose, I'd send my kid to fight against a brutal occupation a lot sooner than I'd send her or him to enforce it.
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