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

by Ahed Tamimi

Detractors have pointed to our youth throwing stones as a contradiction of this principle, accusing us of being violent. Our response has always been that a stone is not a weapon. It has long been a symbol of defense in Palestinian consciousness and mythology. If a Palestinian walking around his land encounters a wild boar or a snake, he instinctually reaches for a stone to defend himself against the creature, but not to preemptively attack it.

A stone, for us, is a symbol. It represents our rejection of the enemy who has come to attack us. To practice nonviolence doesn’t mean we’ll lie down and surrender to our fate submissively. We still have an active role to play in defending our land. Stones help us act as if we’re not victims but freedom fighters. This mindset helps motivate us in the fight to reclaim our rights, dignity, and land.

One of the many horrible consequences of the Oslo Accords is that it gave Israel full control of the water supply in the West Bank. At best, we get only about twelve hours of running water a week, compared to the twenty-four-hours-a-day supply of water (plus swimming pools) enjoyed by the settlers of Halamish, across the road. It’s one of the reasons the loss of our spring was so devastating for us. And so, seeing the surplus of free-flowing water gush out of that vehicle was naturally enticing.

When speaking of the villages and cities stolen from us in 1948, most Palestinians will hardly ever refer to them as “Israel.” Instead they use ad-daakhil, which means “inside”; “the 1948 lands”; or, more simply, “1948” or just “ ’48.” It’s an affirmation of our continued claim to the land and a constant reminder of the tremendous losses we suffered just decades ago—a still-fresh wound.

Palestinians, simply by residing in our homes, we practice a form of resistance.

At a very young age, most of us learned the hard way that we weren’t any safer inside our homes than we were out on the marches.

Women make up half our society, and they raise the whole of it.