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Palestinian teens arrested for assaulting IDF troops, hoping for response on film

In another incident involving members of a notorious family from Nabih Saleh, IDF soldiers maintained their composure in the face of what appeared to be a staged confrontation. The provocateurs were later arrested.

By: Ebin Sandler, World Israel News

Members of the Palestinian Tamimi family have a long history of attempting to stage confrontations with IDF soldiers, which they film and photograph to serve as anti-Israel propaganda.

In the latest incident involving the Tamimi family, 17-year-old Ahed Tamimi was caught filming herself and a friend kicking and slapping IDF soldiers in the village of Nabih Saleh, northwest of Ramallah. While the teenage girls seemed intent on provoking an equally violent response from the soldiers, the young men maintained their composure and merely defended themselves from some of the harder blows.

The incident is remarkable because the IDF soldiers sustained several minutes of deliberate provocations including screaming, harder kicks to the shins and slaps across the face. The soldiers can be seen taking efforts to keep their weapons far from the provocateurs.

On Monday night, Tamimi was arrested by a team of IDF troops and border police officers, with the Palestinian Maan news agency reporting that Israeli troops took cellphones, cameras and laptops as part of their investigation at the Tamimi home.

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“The IDF is the most humane army and operates under values that do not exist anywhere else. But its humanism can’t come at the expense of its deference and power,” Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman stated Tuesday morning.

“Whoever goes wild during the day, will be arrested at night. This is an important message,” Liberman said.

The Tamimi family, dubbed a “propaganda machine” by The Tower, was responsible for a 2015 incident involving then-12-year-old Muhammad Tamimi, who was restrained after throwing rocks at Israelis during a violent protest. The entire incident was photographed extensively and produced pictures of Ahed biting one of the soldier’s hands. Several years earlier, in another Tamimi family production, Ahed was filmed threatening to strike IDF soldiers in an incident that went viral on video.

Tamimi family revives blood libel

In online forums, the Tamimi family has spread modern versions of the age-old blood libel against Jews, spreading the lie on Facebook that Israel kidnaps Palestinian children and steals their organs as part of a conspiracy orchestrated by the “Zionist media.” In another message from Tamimi family members, Manal Tamimi tweeted about the holiest day of the Jewish year, Yom Kippur: “Vampire zionist celebrating their Kebore day by drinking Palestinian bloods, yes our blood is pure & delicious but it will kill u at the end.”

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After Israelis Eitam and Na’ama Henkin were murdered in front of their four young children, Manal Tamimi tweeted, “all settlers in West Bank should stay at their house, Pal lions still free & can reach u & kill you where ever u r.”

Regrettably, groups like Amnesty International have championed the family and their patriarch Bassem, referring to their town Nabih Saleh as “the tiny village with a big voice.” The national director of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, slammed Amnesty for their praise, stating, “Shame on Bassem Tamimi and shame on Amnesty International for supporting him while he spreads the anti-Semitic blood libel on Facebook.”

“The carefully nurtured image of the Tamimis as activists dedicated to promoting a peaceful popular uprising crumbles quickly if one examines their statements cited in published interviews and reports, as well as their publicly accessible social media activity. The Tamimis are not fighting to end Israel’s ‘occupation’ of the West Bank, but to end Israel’s existence as a Jewish state; they harbor intense anti-Semitism and openly support terrorism,” explained a report in The Tower.

Tamimi family members do not restrict their activities to staging confrontations for the cameras. Ahlam Tamimi was the mastermind of the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing in Jerusalem that killed 15 civilians, among them seven children and a pregnant woman, and wounded 130 others.