Palestinian Activist Bassem al-Tamimi to Speak in Ocean City Sept. 21

An internationally-recognized Palestinian human rights activist from the West Bank will speak at the Bayside Center in Ocean City, 520 Bay Avenue, on Monday, Sept. 21, 7 p.m.

Bassem al-Tamimi comes from the village of Nabi Saleh, where he organizes weekly non-violent demonstrations to protest the Israeli settlement.

He’s been arrested over a dozen times, and spent more than three years in administrative detention without trial.

He was convicted by an Israeli court in 2011 of sending people to throw stones and holding a march without a permit. Although his lawyers argued that he would never ask anyone to throw stones, he has said that stone-throwing is an important symbol of the Palestinian resistance to Israeli occupation.

Following this incident, the European Union declared al-Tamimi a “human rights defender,” while Amnesty International labeled him as a “prisoner of conscience.”

He most recently found himself in the middle of a controversy in which an Israeli soldier was seen handling an 11-year-old boy with a broken arm while the soldier had a gun in his hand during an organized protest. The boy is al-Tamimi’s son. His daughter bit an Israeli soldier during the altercation. Soldiers said the act was in response to protestors throwing rocks at the soldiers.

His stop in Ocean City is part of a larger speaking tour of the United States.

The event is sponsored nationally by Jewish Voice for Peace, Friends of Sabeel-North America and Interfaith Peace Builders. Locally, it is sponsored by the Ithaca Committee for Justice in Palestine, Jewish Voice for Peace-Ithaca, Unitarian Universalist Social Justice Committee, Fellowship of Reconciliation and Veterans for Peace, among others.

The attached image of Bassem al-Tamimi was provided by Georgina Shanley.