Summary
The Palestinian woman whose death from tear-gas inhalation at the turn of 2011 opens Falk’s post on Israel’s violence against the separation wall protests (Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, PDF p.138-139).
Details
- Falk records “the shocking death of Jawaher Abu Rahmah on the first day of 2011 as a result of suffocation resulting from tear-gas inhalation; she was not even taking part in the Bil’in demonstration” (PDF p.138). Witnesses confirm she was standing above the actual demonstration as an interested spectator, at a large year-end demonstration that included 350 Israeli and international activists (PDF p.138-139).
- Her brother had been killed a few months earlier by a tear-gas canister fired at high velocity from a close range, as Falk gives it (PDF p.139).
- Falk treats her death, with many other casualties from Israel’s extreme methods of crowd control, as exhibiting a general and unacceptable Israeli disposition to use excessive force against Palestinians living under occupation, and as a form of martyrdom in the nonviolent legitimacy struggle (PDF p.139).
Related pages
Palestine: The Legitimacy of Hope, Bil’in, Separation wall, State Terrorism, Legitimacy struggle