The police dispersed the protesters by force. Female protesters, actually, which might make everything more readable and enticing, especially when we go on to say that it was the Hamas police who used clubs and fists to break up a demonstration organized by the General Federation of Palestinian women. The protesters called for national reconciliation and an end to the political rift - something the Hamas government interprets as denial of its legitimacy, particularly considering that the women's federation is a member organization of the PLO, and that the Fatah movement has hegemony within it.
Policewomen beat the journalist Samya al-Zubeidi with a club, demanding that she stop filming the protest's dispersal. Several of the protesters were men, among them Issam Abu Daqqa of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine. He was taken into custody and held in a squad car until the women protesters left the scene. When released from the squad car, his face was pale, his shirt was torn and his leg was bleeding, the blogger Mustafa Ibrahim reported. Ibrahim further said that when representatives of the PLO political groups complained to the police officers about Abu Daqqa's arrest and the violent tactics, an officer told them: "During the rule of the Palestinian Authority, the security forces arrested [Hamas higher-up] Mahmoud al-Zahar several times and tortured him."
A demonstration is a mixture of parliamentary debate, oversight committee and mass media (without the commercial-entertainment-lapdog dimension ). Suppressing the demonstration is a form of censorship. But the social media instantly began filling up with reports and condemnations of the crackdown, and they are getting harder and harder to censor. Those who live in Gaza, taking full advantage of cyberspace and reporting in detail without sparing criticism, deserve every accolade. Not just courage but also a lot of faith in human wisdom is present in their insistence on protesting, reporting and publicizing critical information about the centers of power and government conduct. And what do you know, the day after the demonstration, the Hamas government issued an apology and promised that the Interior Ministry would appoint a committee to investigate, "because what happened does not reflect the culture of the government or the Palestinian people."
Inquiry commissions are a recipe for whitewashing, and Hamas didn't invent it. The Fatah government in the West Bank is an expert at setting them up and thus diverting criticism over a protest that was put down violently. But it seems that recently, the Ramallah authorities have learned another trick: If you don't use violence to suppress it, protest has less resonance and power, especially when it does not draw mass attendance.
From Nabi Saleh to Rami Levi
That same faith in human wisdom also motivates the Palestinians in the West Bank, who insist on demonstrating against Israeli foreign rule. They believe fervently that their Palestinian sisters and brothers will join them eventually and expand the ranks of the popular struggle, even if so far their expectations have not been met. They also have faith that more and more Israelis will eventually listen to them, and that their wisdom will outweigh the individual and collective profit they gain, in the short term, from ruling over another people, its land and the rest of its natural resources.
Bassam Tamimi's faith in human wisdom is apparently interminable, and this is sufficient reason to go back and recount his history. Just half a year ago he was released after 13 months in an Israeli prison for organizing demonstrations in his village, Nabi Saleh - demonstrations that Israeli soldiers put down with well known harshness every week. Under military rule, demonstrations are illegal a priori. And in the Israeli media, which does not report, a super-censor operates: the lack of public interest. Tamimi is not allowed now to protest in his village on automatic penalty of arrest. But on October 24 he took part in a demonstration by several Palestinian and international activists at the Rami Levi supermarket in the Geva Binyamin industrial zone southeast of Ramallah. Palestinians are not allowed to enter settlements (unless they work there ). Rami Levi is allowed in, and not be accident: Many Palestinians shop there, thus breaking the Palestinian law barring the purchase of settlement products. Tamimi was arrested. The police alleged that he struck with his fist the hand of the policeman, Benny Malka, who arrested his wife, Neriman. It happened after the protesters were removed from the supermarket and told they had five minutes to break up the illegal gathering. Neriman Tamimi, according to this version of events, was walking along the exit road from the complex and waving a Palestine flag, contrary to the orders to walk on the shoulder. When the policeman let go of her, she fled from arrest.
The military judge, Lt. Col. Menachem Lieberman, accepted the testimony of the arresting policeman that he was assaulted, even though the video footage bears no evidence of that. Therefore Lieberman opposed the request to release Tamimi with restrictions until the end of legal proceedings. During the second hearing at the Ofer military court, defense attorneys Gabi Lasky and Neri Ramati presented a completely different version of the events. The demonstrators were not forcibly removed from the supermarket but rather left of their own accord after waving their protest signs. They exited the complex and headed to their cars. One of the policemen gave them five minutes to vacate the premises, but after a minute and a half the policeman, Malka, harassed Nariman Tamimi and arrested her as she stood on the side of the road, next to settlers who were also standing there, and then the protesters gathered around Malka and it was they who brought about her release. She did not flee, contrary to what was claimed. And the policeman - as the footage shows - grabbed Bassam Tamimi "and strangled him in a pretty dramatic chokehold and all the actions of the respondent (Tamimi ) at that time were to try and open the chokehold so he could breathe," as Lasky described it.
As expected, the military prosecutor, Capt. Eshchar Erez, argued that the video on which the defense was basing itself has been edited. To convince the court that Tamimi is dangerous, he reminded the judge, Maj. Meir Vigisser, that last year when Tamimi was released with restrictions (to visit his sick mother ), "an article penned by him miraculously appeared in the written press [Haaretz] in which he calls for the Palestinian uprising to continue. These were statements of incitement. An indictment was not brought in the matter." Judge Vigisser thought Tamimi could be sent to house arrest until the end of the legal proceedings. The prosecution was about to appeal, and the parties reached a plea bargain: The prosecution waived the assault charge and substituted "obstructing a soldier in the performance of his duty."
For this and for the offense of illegal assembly, Tamimi was sent yet again to prison for four months.
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