“I was beaten while in prison...I was denied food...I was kept in solitary confinement...I was raped.”
These words will become the politically correct anthem of 17-year old Ahed Tamimi, which might be endlessly sung by her when she is soon released from an Israeli prison.
How much harm could the lying Tamimi do to Israel after she is released from jail? Possibly, she could cause more destruction than all the missiles ever fired from Gaza.
She is currently serving the final months of a jail sentence, following her last attempt at seeking fame by slapping an IDF soldier.
Upon Tamimi’s release, the foreign media might well invent a young Palestinian saint who could be cast as the David to the Israeli Goliath.
So now is the time that Israeli officials should be focused on how to rein her in after her release, to assure that the foreign media does not have the chance to script her, Hollywood-style, as the Martin Luther King of the Palestinians.
Tamimi as the Palestinian Joan of Arc would be a wonderfully simplistic story, which is the only type of story the world’s media wishes to cover.
While the Palestinians might initially promote Tamimi, the foreign media would be the groupies who create a tsunami of support for her. The media would become her true constituency----the media would become her adoring public.
Indeed, the foreign media and Tamimi would feed off of each other. She would travel the world providing hours of great television visuals with interviews, marches and speeches. And the media would give her the constant attention and adoration she neurotically craves.
Yet, there is still time to prevent this nightmare. Today, Israel’s image makers might ask themselves, when Tamimi is released how can they prevent her being recruited as the worldwide poster girl for Palestinian victimhood?
Today, the Tamimi story is like a smoldering ember waiting to burst into flames, as she could quickly become a world famous media star, since she has everything the media likes. Or as a Hollywood mogul might say, “This kid’s got it all!”
She is young, photogenic with her signature hairstyle and smile, she projects both the girl-next-door personna and at the same time, and most importantly, she is sexy.
All this is very, very important for the news business, which is foremost an entertainment medium. Could you imagine the news media clamoring to interview her if she was middle-aged and overweight?
In fact, the process of turning Tamimi into an international celebrity has already begun.
During her February pre-trial hearing, over 100 foreign journalists, embassy representatives and sympathizers attended her hearing to express their support for Tamimi.
In fact, the media and Tamimi’s supporters caused such an uproar that the judge had to remove them from the courtroom. And this was just a preview of what might occur upon her release.
Right now, Tamimi is a rising star among young social justice warriors on college campuses. But she could quickly become a world-class celebrity for the always leaderless Palestinians, touring the world and retelling her story about the evil Jews. And all the while, her family’s bank accounts will grow fat with Palestinian Authority stipends.
Soon she will be back on the streets, and we should expect that the anti-Jewish foreign media will constantly seek her out for interviews. And we know from past experience that no members of the foreign media will ask her hard questions, and none will ever check her answers to see if they are truthful.
In fact, the media has already announced they will broadcast anything she says and never check the truth of her statements. In December, Tamimi told the court that the soldiers she attacked had shot her cousin in the head with a rubber bullet an hour before the slapping incident. “Then I saw the same soldiers who hit my cousin, this time in front of my house. I could not keep quiet and I responded as I did,” she testified.
Real journalists check and check and check. And when the facts---such as the soldier who shot her cousin is now standing in front of Tamimi’s house--sound too good to be true, it is because they usually are not true.
So how will Israel respond when Tamimi speaks before waiting news cameras, claiming that while in prison she was held in solitary confinement, and that she was beaten and starved?
And then, at the urging of her media handlers, she will no doubt drop the atomic bomb by telling the world that she was raped by Jewish soldiers while in prison, ending this libel by crying on cue, just in time for the evening news.
Meanwhile, the possibilities arising from this scenario keep getting worse. Once she has established her credentials as a world-class victim, what if the Palestinians schedule her for a world tour?
As the face of Palestinian martyrdom, how about her receiving a standing ovation at the United Nations? How about her being issued invitations from leftist politicians worldwide, like the UK’s Jew-hating Jeremy Corbyn and his cousin-in-hate US Congressman Keith Ellison? What about being treated like royalty on university campuses? And what of her being embraced by women’s organizations?
And don’t forget what will happen when the American race hustlers---Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton and Louis Farrakhan---get hold of Tamimi. Each will gleefully stand with her in front of crowds, lifting her hand high in victory….while their other hand is stretched out, awaiting Arab money.
In truth, the question is not about what Tamimi will do, but what Israel will do to prevent the media from using Tamimi as the chic poster girl of Palestinian martyrdom?
One possibility would be for Israel to restrict her contacts after she is released from jail by confining her to house arrest until her attraction to the media has finally diminished. No foreign visitors, no media interviews, no speeches, and no leaving the country.
If she violates these conditions, she would be returned to jail.
The Jews are in the midst of a media war of manipulated images and false accusations. Anyone who has fought in war will tell you that battles are not won by fighting according to a rule book of fair conduct.
The media is a weapon, and it has proven very effective in harming Israel, the IDF and the Jews. By re-telling the story of the evil Jews of Israel, the foreign media successfully brings into question the future existence of the state.
For 2000 years the church and its priests broadcast from their pulpits about evil Jews. Today, the foreign media has enthusiastically taken over the job of the church and their priests, and from the media pulpit comes the accusations about today’s Jews poisoning, well, everything.
If you have any doubt about this, look at Israel’s standing among the public in Europe, after decades of published and televised falsehoods by their anti-Semitic media.
A 2014 BBC poll found two-thirds of those surveyed in France, Great Britain, Germany and Spain held mostly negative views of Israel.
Ahed Tamimi’s Arab handlers know well that when she is released from prison she will be received as a hero by the foreign media, and whatever accusations she makes against Israel will never be verified by the press when they transmit her lies around the world.
In fact, it will be the foreign media who will keep her “cause” alive. It will be the foreign media who will seek to harm Israel by promoting her stylish haircut, her western appearance, and her “martyrdom”.
The haters of Israel will say Tamimi is the new Ghandi, Mandela, Dr. King, and Joan of Arc. And foreign reporters will gladly promote these comparisons, though in private the reporters will admit, “I don’t actually know who those historical figures were. Is there a movie about them I can download?”
Restricting Tamimi is not about being moral. And it is not about being fair. This is about winning the media war. And in this war, whoever controls the images is the winner.
Many, including leftist Jews, will protest any restrictions placed on Tamimi. “But how can you treat this child like this?” asks those who are breathlessly hoping to exploit her as a very lethal weapon against Israel, while seeking to publicize any alleged violations of Tamimi’s rights?
But what of the rights of the soldier who she slapped? What of the rights of Israel’s soldier-sons? Should they, too, become targets for abuse and humiliation? And what of the memory of so many Jewish soldiers who died just because they were upholding IDF codes of conduct?
To date, the nation’s media advisors have acted with great sophistication in removing Tamimi from the media spotlight.
But now that she has earned her credentials as a genuine victim, she could be launched into the media stratosphere to be exploited as an extremely powerful weapon whose only purpose is to destroy Israel.
We pray that Israel’s media advisors can block Tamimi before she does terrible harm to the government, the IDF and the people of Israel.