Self-proclaimed Palestinian “protest icon” Ahed Tamimi, a teen who served an eight-month prison sentence after attacking two Israeli soldiers, has urged others to follow her example, saying “We should all be slapping soldiers, not just me.”
In an interview with the Tunisian Musaique FM radio channel and posted by The Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) on Thursday, Tamimi goes on to say, “What I did should be a regular thing. We should always be slapping soldiers, wherever they may be, regardless of whether they did anything or not.”
“Ultimately, these are occupying soldiers. They occupied our land, and they shoot at little children and target homes and people,” she added. “So this is a natural reaction to the presence of the occupation, to the presence of soldiers on my land. Everybody should be slapping soldiers.”
Tamimi also “pledged to continue on the path of the martyrs” and “to continue to make sacrifices, even sacrificing my life, for the sake of liberating Palestine.”
As Breitbart Jerusalem reported, on December 15 last year Tamimi, 16, was caught on film as she accosted the two soldiers in her West Bank village of Nabi Salih.
Video shows her telling them to leave before shoving, kicking and slapping them. See below:
The soldiers were there to prevent Palestinians from throwing stones at Israeli motorists nearby, according to the charges filed at the Ofer military court after her arrest.
Tamimi was later tried and found guilty of assault, served an eight-month sentence and was released from prison in July.
At the time, Israeli politicians hailed the restraint of the soldiers as evidence of the military’s values.
Ahed’s father, Bassem, told AP his daughter received a call from Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan soon after her release. Bassem Tamimi says he does not know what Erdogan said to his daughter.
Erdogan received Tamimi in Turkey in 2012, after she scuffled with an Israeli soldier trying to arrest her brother.
Follow Simon Kent on Twitter: Follow @SunSimonKent or e-mail to: skent@breitbart.com
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