«A figure in the Palestinian cause was arrested in the occupied West Bank on Monday 6 November. Ahed Tamimi, aged 22, was arrested in the morning by the Israeli army at her home in Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, on suspicion of "incitement to violence and terrorist activities". For years now, the young woman has been a Palestinian icon who has embarrassed the Hebrew state.»

    These are the opening words of the short article on the RFI website.

   We don't know why she was arrested, other than that she is suspected of inciting violence. So we imagine. But imagining is not proving.

    Since the age of fourteen, after she bit an Israeli soldier to defend her younger brother, she has been campaigning for the liberation of her territory occupied by Israel (I was going to write her country, but only a tiny part - barely 10% of its surface area - is administered by the Palestinians) and invaded by its fascist and hegemonic settlers.

   But militancy does not necessarily mean violence. She simply wants to live in peace, in her own country, on her own land.

   The West Bank could have been the country the Palestinians dreamed of, so that they could live side by side with Israel. Since the 6-Day War in 1967, the Hebrew state has decided otherwise.

  But the worst thing is this uninterrupted iniquitous colonisation, the hallmark of the senseless hegemony of the extreme right that has ruled this country for decades.

  In December 2008, I wrote a post about how fed up I was with Israel's constant use of armed vengeance. And this violence should not be allowed to spread to the West Bank.

   But nothing has changed.

  I said at the time that each bomb dropped would multiply by a hundred those who would never forgive and would take revenge in their turn.

   But nothing has changed.

   I used to say that this government generated nothing but hatred by scorning the Palestinians, by herding them like cattle, by offering them nothing but violence and disrespect.

   Nothing has changed.

   Of course, Hamas is a terrorist group and the crimes committed on 7 October are also abominable and unforgivable.

    Of course, I understand the dismay of these people in the face of such ignominy.

   Of course, the desire for vengeance, normally, humanly speaking, invades every wounded heart.

    But until when?

   Will nothing ever change? And this violence must not be allowed to spread to the occupied West Bank.

   And yet, if you don't want anti-Semitism to continue to explode around the world, if you don't want to hear these cries of hatred against you pouring out like a river in flood, if you don't want to disappear one day, if you don't want your children, tomorrow, to suffer as you have suffered, you will have to find the solution of a lasting peace, through dialogue and not arms. Unless you indulge in this role of victim, which no longer has any place today.

    And this peace requires the establishment of a genuine, free, autonomous Palestinian State at your side. Whether you want it or not.

    So, please, when the bombardments on Gaza have stopped, useless no doubt in their purpose, but necessary to soothe your pain, to heal your wounds, abandon this imperialism that is no longer appropriate in this century, no longer consider your Palestinian brothers as systematic enemies and give them the space they need to live in peace by your side.