They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom

by Ahed Tamimi

But Zionism is a political ideology that says Judaism is not only a religion, but primarily a nationality—and that it needs a country. Not just any country, but our country, and that it needs this country to be for Jews alone. Zionism has taken our country, where Jews, Christians, and Muslims have lived for centuries, and made it a country that is ruled by and for Jews alone. Zionists’ ideology claims that they have the right to take other people’s land, to push them out. And I can’t accept this. No Palestinian can accept this. No human should accept this. It’s not racist to say this—it’s the opposite. We need a country where Jews and Christians and Muslims can live together as equals, with the same human rights and democracy. Zionism rejects this vision, demanding that all of Palestine be a “Jewish” state. And some Western countries sympathize with this because of the Holocaust. We know that Jews suffered terrible, unimaginable crimes at the hands of the Nazis, and all of humanity should stand against such murderous hatred and make sure it’s never repeated. But how does that give Zionists the right to push us off our own land to make a country for Jews alone? Why should Palestinians compensate—lose our homeland, our property, our rights, even our lives—for the Holocaust committed by Europeans? We shouldn’t have to pay for the crimes of the Europeans against Jews. That’s just wrong.