The Tamimi Family – a Dynasty of Arab Terrorists

Two indictments were filed last week, against 17 year old Ahed Tamimi and her 21 year old cousin, Nur Tamimi, the daughter of the head of the Nabi Salah council. They were arrested for assault on IDF soldiers. We all saw the difficult to stomach images of these young women assailing the soldiers as they stood helpless, holding themselves back so not to be tempted to respond physically to the provocation.

This is not the first time that IDF soldiers are forced to deal with such situations. This happens practically every day. Every Israeli citizen who has served as a combat soldier is familiar with this type of harassment, done deliberately in front of the cameras, as I myself am, having served as a fighter in conflict areas.

This disturbance to IDF soldiers in the performance of their duties is carried out on a daily basis. Most often young boys and girls are used for this mission to create a provocation in any way possible which can then be used as a propaganda weapon against Israel in the international media.

The Arabs have turned this behavior into a flourishing industry of lies that has been dubbed “Pallywood,” and the Tamimi family are among the biggest stars in the field. The family, which lives in the village of Nabi Saleh in the south of Samaria, has been in contact for years with activists from extreme leftist organizations such as B’Tselem, who instruct them on how to act and even equip them with cameras to document the activity.

Following the recent incident, Ahed Tamimi (who is often misleadingly reported to be 14 or 15 years old for some reason) has become the darling of Arab propaganda. Despite her young age, she has already managed to accumulate a rather impressive record in staged provocations.

She is very active in the social networks and six years ago was documented in a video cursing  IDF soldiers and waving her fist at them. As a result, she was invited to Turkey, where President Erdogan gave her a medal of honor. Two and a half years ago she came back to the headlines after being photographed physically assaulting a soldier along with some of her relatives.

There is no doubt that the image of an innocent blonde girl facing a group of armed soldiers is a very effective visual weapon in the Arab battle against Israel in the media, which succeeds at pulling at the heartstrings of people in European countries, where Tamimi has already become a symbol of a struggle for freedom. When you look though at Tamimi’s roots and her family history, it turns out that the truth is the complete opposite.

In 1993, a resident of Beit El, Haim Mizrachi, went to buy eggs in a village near Ramallah, as he had done for years. When he arrived at the store, he was ambushed by two terrorists who stabbed him and then burned him to death in his car. The two terrorists were Said and Nizar Tamimi, cousins of Ahed’s father, Bassem.

The terrorist murderer Nizar Tamimi married Ahlam Tamimi from the village of Nabi Saleh, who in 2001 drove the suicide bomber who blew himself up at the Sbarro restaurant in Jerusalem and murdered 15 Israelis, including seven children. Another 140 people were injured in the attack. Tamimi was released as part of the Shalit deal and is currently living in Jordan where she presents a television program in which she praises terrorists and calls for attacks.

Another famous relative of this delightful family is Manal Tamimi, Bassem’s sister-in-law, whose Twitter account is one of the most popular in the Arab world. In it she shares anti-Semitic videos and distributes terrorist propaganda.

Bassem, the father of the family, was once convicted of organizing violent acts against soldiers. He is also very active with his wife in spreading anti-Israel propaganda and is occasionally invited to lecture on the issue in Europe and the United States.

When you look at the dark past of the Tamimi family, you can understand how the younger generation grew up to be brainwashed and full of hatred for Israel, continuing the path of terror and violence of its parents, with the support of left wing organizations, in their best tradition of  justifying terror.

Last week, Ahed Tamimi’s lawyer, Gabi Laski, was interviewed on IDF Radio and explained that this is the narrative of occupation and that the story of Ahed and the soldiers is the story of the occupied and the occupier.

Lasky is also one of the founders of Peace Now, one of the left-wing organizations that fund and support the Tamimi family and are now trying to portray her as an innocent child struggling with the occupation. In fact, she is simply a new stage in the Arab aspiration to delegitimize Israel and bring about its elimination by incessantly inciting against Jews .

So the next time you see another masterpiece, courtesy of Tamimi Productions, remember the dynasty of terror and hatred that these young women, who have become heroines in Arab society, have grown up with, and you will understand again what kind of enemy we are facing and what its real intentions are.

(Translated from Mida.org.il Hebrew)

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Lital Shemesh is an Israeli Journalist and Commentator

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