By Petra Marquardt-Bigman
Daniel Seidemann is the founder and director of the NGO Terrestrial Jerusalem (TJ), and TJ’s website
describes him as a “world-renowned Jerusalem expert.” Seidemann’s NGO “works to identify and track the full spectrum of developments in Jerusalem that could impact either the political process or permanent status options, destabilize the city or spark violence, or create humanitarian crises.” TJ also claims to represent “a proud Jewish/Israeli voice.”
Yesterday, Seidemann
announced on Twitter that he has “endless admiration for Ahed Tamimi;” he explained that she is “16 yrs old and under arrest for her courage in resisting occupation. A slap is not a war crime - we Israelis have ‘earned’ the right to be humiliated.”
How’s that for “a proud Jewish/Israeli voice”…
You can watch Ahed Tamimi helping IDF soldiers get their Seidemann-declared “right to be humiliated”
here.
For some reason, the tweet showed up in my feed, and since I wasn’t aware of Seidemann’s awesome status as a “world-renowned Jerusalem expert,” I thought he might perhaps not know much about the background of the teenager for whom he professed “endless admiration.” So I responded by
posting some of the facts about the Tamimis’ ardent Jew-hatred and support for terrorism that I’ve documented in great detail.
It didn’t take long for Seidemann to respond to me – by
blocking me.
Unfortunately, I now can’t ask him anymore if this is also the modus operandi of his NGO: when you encounter facts you don’t like, you just block them and pretend they don’t exist.
I have no doubt that as a “world-renowned Jerusalem expert,” Seidemann knows very well that the Tamimis have been rooting for years for a “third intifada,” and that as far as they are concerned, the ultimate goal of this intifada is the end of Israel. As Ahed’s father Bassem Tamimi
put it two years ago during a speaking tour in the US: “Israel is a big settlement” and “the problem is the ‘colonial project’ of Zionism.”
Moreover, as I’ve noted
previously, if the “third intifada” the Tamimis have tried to incite for years “was brought about by knife-wielding Palestinian teenagers stabbing Jews on the streets of Israel’s cities, the Tamimis could see nothing wrong with that. They had always advocated the use of children in violent confrontations with the IDF, and now they were ready to hail teenaged terrorists as ‘heroes’ if they were arrested, and as ‘martyrs’ if they were killed while killing or trying to kill” — and often enough the Tamimis claimed at the same time that the “martyrs” they celebrated were innocent victims executed in cold blood by the evil Zionists.
Of course, Ahed Tamimi cannot be blamed for the way she was brought up, but by expressing “endless admiration for Ahed Tamimi” and applauding her attack on Israeli soldiers, Seidemann implicitly endorsed the vile views and the despicable conduct of her parents.
So let’s not forget that for Ahed’s mother Nariman Tamimi, her daughter’s aunt Ahlam Tamimi – who planned and facilitated the Sbarro bombing and was deliriously happy about the carnage it wrought – is not a terrorist, but an admirable rebel.
One thing is for sure: “world-renowned Jerusalem expert” Daniel Seidemann would be (rightly) horrified if a Jewish teenager was brought up with this kind of “values,” but the bigotry of lower expectations requires that he feels “endless admiration” for a Palestinian teenager who has been ruthlessly indoctrinated by her Jew-hating terror-loving parents.
(For more EoZ articles on Seidemann, see here and here.)
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