When Israel arrested 24-year-old Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi for inciting terrorism in 2023, mainstream media outlets described her as a modern-day Gandhi. The New York Times hailed Tamimi as an “international symbol of Palestinian resistance.” Reuters claimed her protests of “Israeli land seizures” had made her “a hero since she was a teenager.” Even before her arrest, CNN called her a “fearless teen” who suffered the horrors of “living under Israeli military occupation.”
What those outlets have not reported, among other things, is Tamimi’s praise for Adolf Hitler, promises to drink the blood of Jews, and declarations that she is “fighting the Jews, not Zionism.”
Tamimi, who rose to prominence at 16 years old for slapping an Israeli soldier on camera, has received praise as a “superstar in the campaign against Israeli occupation,” as the Associated Press described her. Her comments on an Arabic-language podcast earlier this month, though, reveal a different motivation.
“My definition of Judaism, ever since I was a child, has been that it is the same as Zionism,” Tamimi said during an Aug. 8 appearance on the Enlightenment Podcast. “If a Jew does not want his religion to be defined this way, he can join me in the struggle against Zionism.”
Given Tamimi’s own words, though, that may be a tough needle to thread.
“Judaism means occupation, and today, tomorrow, and a million years from now, I will continue to say that Judaism [should] be presented to the children of Palestine—children of my age and younger—as occupation, and that we are fighting the Jews, not Zionism,” she continued.
Tamimi said the Western media outlets portraying her as a hero should “shut up” and listen to the “superior” Palestinians rather than present their own accounts.
“Western media—or any media in the world—should not come and present its views,” she said, according to a translation from the Middle East Media Research Institute. “No! The whole world needs to shut up when a Palestinian is talking. We are superior to the entire world, because we are the only ones in the world fighting injustice, at the expense of our lives, and the expense of our humanity.”
A former Israeli defense official who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon said the media’s portrayal of Tamimi as a peaceful activist—and Israel as a violent aggressor—falls flat under scrutiny.
“Her hatred for Israel and the Jews is self-evident,” the source said. “She chose to incite, to hate, and to poison. And those who support her are unsurprisingly the same Hamas flag-waving anti-Semites who care not one iota for the Palestinian people, just the destruction of the one and only Jewish state.”
When Israel arrested Tamimi in November 2023—just a month after Hamas’s brutal terror campaign—the Times spoke to her mother, Nariman, who claimed that “an online campaign had vilified her daughter as a terrorist and demanded Ahed’s arrest.”
Israel, the paper claimed, arrested Tamimi “on suspicion of inciting violence and calling for terrorist activity, but ha[d] declined to provide further information.”
The arrest, though, stemmed in part from Tamimi’s social media activity, including an Instagram post that included threats to murder Jewish civilians.
“We are waiting for you in all the West Bank cities from Hebron to Jenin—we will slaughter you and you will say that what Hitler did to you was a joke,” the Jerusalem Post reported Tamimi as saying. “We will drink your blood and eat your skull. Come on, we are waiting for you.”
Tamimi’s family “denied that she wrote the post,” according to the Times, “saying her account had been hacked months ago,” though the paper cited no proof to support this claim.
Liora Rez, executive director of the watchdog group StopAntisemitism, said Tamimi’s violent rhetoric is the product of a Palestinian education system that glorifies terrorism against Israel.
“Ahed Tamimi is the latest example of what being taught hate from an early age results in,” she said. “Any future for the Palestinian people must start with the denazification in Palestinian schools.”
Tamimi’s radical views were clear well before her 2023 arrest. During a 2019 interview with state-controlled Russian propaganda organ RT, she claimed, “The U.K. government is completely controlled by Israel, who are the biggest supporter of terrorism. They encourage the killing of Palestinian people.”
A year earlier, Tamimi vowed “to continue on the path of the martyrs” and “continue to make sacrifices, even sacrificing my life, for the sake of liberating Palestine.” She also expressed support for former Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah during an interview with France 24.
“I’m with Hassan Nasrallah,” Tamimi said when asked if she has any regrets about glorifying the terror leader. “Of course I do not regret it. Hassan Nasrallah supports the Palestinian cause, and he is against America and Israel, so I’m with him on that matter.”
Adar Rubin, director of mobilization at the EndJewHatred advocacy group, said mainstream media coverage of Tamimi only aids her violent aspirations.
“Since Oct. 7, high-profile anti-Israel activists like Ms. Tamimi have fueled global Jew-hatred, aligning with Hamas’s indiscriminate violence against perceived Jews or those simply present in Israel, regardless of their politics,” Rubin told the Free Beacon. “Tragically, Tamimi, radicalized into Jew-hatred and violent tactics from age 16, could have been a Palestinian leader pursuing peace. Instead, major publications like the New York Times have irresponsibly glorified her as a ‘firebrand’ spokesperson for the Palestinian people, despite her history of violence against an IDF soldier, while ignoring Gazan-led anti-Hamas grassroots efforts calling for peace.”
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