A teenage girl slaps and taunts a soldier who has invaded her family’s home, shot her cousin, and is a member of an illegal army of occupation of her people’s land (Palestinian teenager who slapped soldiers agrees plea deal..., 22 March). Her act is defined as “terrorism” when in fact many of us, facing such a threat to our homes and families, would have acted with far less restraint and called it “resistance”. After a secret trial, the teenager receives a sentence of eight months in prison. A soldier from the same army, also taking part in the illegal occupation of someone else’s territory, kills a criminal who had been captured and was lying wounded, by shooting him in the head.
It is difficult to think of two more different forms of violence – one a few slaps and kicks, the other, by an official of the state, leads to a conviction of manslaughter. The girl, Ahed Tamimi, was sentenced to eight months in prison; the killer is serving nine months. This is Israel. How can anyone – including the British government – continue to deny that it is a persistent offender against all norms of civilised and humane behaviour?
Karl Sabbagh
Bloxham, Oxfordshire
• Oliver Holmes writes that the Tamimi family has a “long history” of “violent resistance”. In so doing, the Guardian offers its readers a pleasant-sounding euphemism that obscures a history of terrorism and murder. In 2001, Ahlam Tamimi drove a suicide bomber to a pizzeria in Jerusalem, murdering 15 innocent civilians, among them seven children and a pregnant woman. Upon her release from prison in 2011, members of the larger Tamimi family gathered to celebrate her “resistance”. The deliberate targeting and bombing of innocent men, women and children is not “resistance”; it is cold-blooded murder.
Yehuda Avivi
Spokesperson, Embassy of Israel, London
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