A video of an Israeli soldier near the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh being confronted by women and children is making the rounds. It has over a million views on Facebook alone. (Embedded towards end of this post.)
As you view the history below, don't blame the children. They are victims of their family's abuse which puts them in harms way for photo-ops. Were these children treated such a way in the U.S., there is no doubt that local family services agencies would be involved in preventing their dangerous exploitation by their parents.
In the current incident, the soldier, according to Israeli authorities, was in the process of detaining a member of the Tamimi clan of Nabi Saleh for stone throwing.
Haaretz reports:
An Israeli soldier tried to detain a minor during clashes in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh on Friday, but a number of Palestinian women and children managed to stop him.
According to the army, the youth was throwing stones at the troops, who did not realize he was a minor.
Photographs taken by Reuters and AFP show the soldier surrounded by women and children. In one of the images, a young girl is seen biting his hand.
The soldier was lightly wounded as a result of the altercation. The commander in the area decided to release the minor. The army said that one other Palestinian was detained in Friday's clashes, along with one foreign activist.
Haaretz quotes left-wing Israeli activist Jonathan Pollak,
who denies Israel even has a right to exist, as denying that there was stone throwing. The fact Pollak was present makes the whole incident suspect, in addition to the background of the Tamimi family.
Now, questions are being raised by
The Daily Mail of Britain and others as to whether the current incident was deliberately provoked because Tamimi members were involved. The most famous photo shows a girl biting the hand of the Israeli soldier. That girl is Ahed Tamimi.
