Nabi Saleh: The New Viral Video

September 3, 2015 Nabi Saleh 0 Comments

There’s been the usual battle of conflicting interpretations of the video of last Friday’s incident involving an IDF soldier and the young son of Bassem and Nariman Tamimi, activists from the village of Nabi Saleh. The Guardian summed it up well: “[The images] speak of the asymmetry of the conflict. And they speak too of Israel gradually losing a global battle of narratives over the occupation where a different kind of asymmetry – the leverage of social media – can propel a single incident into an international scandal.”

I’ve been at many demonstrations in Nabi Saleh. They’re ritualized, manipulated events. However, there are largely in the tradition of Gandhi, examples of dedicated, persistent, disciplined (primarily) non-violent resistance. In some regards, the Israelis excercise remarkable restraint – the soldier in the video is holding a large automatic weapon, and doesn’t use it even though he is being punched and bitten. But why should he be there in the first place?

Here is the full video, shot by steadfast Tamimi Press journalist Bilal Tamimi: