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

by Ahed Tamimi

This moment was inevitable, something I expected my whole life. Getting arrested by the Israeli army was always a matter of when, not if.

Sad truth

But what I did was a natural reaction to seeing belligerent foreign occupiers on my family’s land, an immoral army that had just nearly killed my cousin and was now shooting at children from the entrance of my home.

I’m supposed to be studying right now, not sitting here under arrest. I’m supposed to graduate in a few months, not be locked up in prison. This thought makes me cry even more.

This was the price my village paid for the unarmed resistance movement we dared to wage against our occupiers, the violent punishment we incurred for holding weekly protests to defend our rights and our land.

Being arrested by Israel’s army has always been a fact of life for us, practically a rite of passage that’s impossible to avoid. And now my turn has come.

Israel declared its statehood on May 14, 1948, but not on empty, uninhabited land. The state was established on the land of my grandparents: historic Palestine. European Jews created a state on territory where the majority of residents were the indigenous Palestinian population. And in order to achieve this state in which they would be the majority, the Zionists had to violently evict the Palestinian majority. Even today, many Zionist thinkers freely admit that without the ethnic cleansing of 1948, they would not have had their Jewish state.

Israel’s campaign to ethnically cleanse the land of its native Palestinian population didn’t stop in 1948. It has never stopped. Today, generations of Palestinian refugees, more than seven million of them and their decendants, live across the globe. It’s the longest unresolved refugee crisis in the world.

Growing up under a foreign military occupation means living under the constant threat of state-sanctioned violence. It also means living with the total absence of freedom, which is the case for more than five million Palestinians in the occupied territories today.

We need permission to build our homes, to travel, to work—all the basic rights and freedoms you might take for granted living in a civil society simply don’t exist when you’re living under military occupation. It’s not an easy life, and yet, it’s the only one I’ve ever known.

They wanted to send a message to the occupier that we didn’t accept their presence in any way. They wanted to send an even bigger message to the world: that the Palestinian people wouldn’t accept life under Israeli occupation. And finally, they wanted to send a message to the Palestinian people that the natural reaction to life under occupation was resistance and that it was their responsibility and their duty to stand up to our oppressors.

The root problem is Israel’s colonial settler project, which seeks to control us, steal our land, and ethnically cleanse us from it. The problem is the occupation itself. And so, exposing the injustices of the occupation for the world to see was one of the most important goals of our movement.

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.

Daring to defend what was ours was not a crime. If anything, it was a duty.

But more dangerous than that is how Zionism has occupied the minds and the humanity of far too many Israelis.

“You thieves!” my mother shouted at them in Arabic. “Leave our stuff alone and get out of here!” “Shut up,” a soldier barked at her in Hebrew. “I don’t want to shut up! You’re in my house. You shut up.” “Go away,” another soldier said. “You go away. This is my house! Go to your own house!”

But, rather than feeling like defeated victims, we began collecting and repurposing these relics of war. We’d plant flowers in empty tear gas canisters. I’ve transformed bullets fired at us into necklace pendants, some of which I’ve gifted to close friends. The fence in front of Janna and my uncle Bilal’s home is decorated with dozens of empty tear gas canisters, an unusual display that sends a message to the Israeli army that despite its attempts to literally choke and suppress us, we’re still standing. We strive to create life out of death, and we’ll continue to find beauty even in the ugliest parts of our lives.

While I believe that it’s the right of all colonized, occupied, and oppressed people to stand up to their oppressors, I’ve always been convinced that staying alive and conveying our message through unarmed resistance is more powerful and strategic than our dying. I can’t serve the Palestinian cause if I’m dead.

“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

It showed the world that just as they ultimately opposed South African apartheid, they should also take action against Israel’s.

Similarly, to control our movement as Palestinians in the occupied territories, Israel imposes color-coded identification cards and license plates, has installed an elaborate permit and checkpoint system, and has designated specific roads we’re allowed to drive on—not to mention that Israel erected an apartheid wall.

My people have dignity and don’t want your pity. We’re not the victims. The brainwashed Israeli soldier who carries his rifle and shoots with no humanity—he’s the real victim. We want you to see us as the freedom fighters we are, so that you can support us the right way.”

That day, we planted an olive tree at the top of the mountain, as a symbol of hope and peace and a gesture of our solidarity with the people of South Africa. I found it beautiful to leave part of our heritage and identity in another land in such a meaningful and enduring way. We’d soon be returning home, but future visitors might inquire how a random olive tree ended up at the top of Table Mountain, and they could now be told that it was planted by Palestinian children who had traveled from afar to be there. It solidified our connection to each other.

What justification did they have, first, to fire at children and, then, to invade the home of a sick and helpless old woman?

Unless you’ve experienced a foreign army occupying your land, imprisoning your parents, killing your loved ones, and shooting you and virtually everyone you’re related to, you’ll have a hard time understanding the rage with which I was overcome—seeing the entitlement of these soldiers as they walked around our property like they owned it.

Even when their crimes are nearly identical to those of Israelis, Palestinians are not punished the same, tried the same, or given the same rights and protections as Israelis.

Laughter sends a powerful message: We’re still alive, we’re still laughing, and we love life.

“But don’t even dream that I’m going to apologize to you. Or to this court. And even if you forced me to attend ten trials like this, don’t think I’ll ever apologize to you. Because if I apologize to you now, I’d be apologizing to the soldier that killed my cousin an hour ago. I refuse to apologize. And if you think I’m going to say I’ll never repeat what I did, you’re mistaken. As long as you’re occupying our land, I’ll do what I did again, and I won’t just slap one soldier. I’ll slap ten soldiers every time they come to the front of our house. I’ll even slap you, if I have to, even if I have to live in prison!”

I told them there were many ways of resisting—whether by writing poetry, speaking out, throwing stones, or making art—but at the end of the day, it was up to the people to decide the right path forward for them.

We need a country where Jews and Christians and Muslims can live together as equals, with the same human rights and democracy.

Sometimes, when I’m sitting on that hill, I close my eyes and imagine the day we’ll see Palestine free. I imagine how our people will react when that day finally comes. I think some of us might die from elation. How incredible it will feel to live with no more checkpoints or soldiers; no apartheid wall or martyrs to mourn! Our people will finally be united because the separation between the West Bank and Gaza and 1948 will cease to exist. I’ll be able to love whom I want and plan for my future without the fear that I might get shot and killed or imprisoned once again. I’ll visit Akka as I please and spend an entire day swimming in the sea. One day, I might even save up enough to buy my own charming little stone house overlooking the water. On other days, I’ll roam Jerusalem’s Old City for hours, eventually joining my favorite old hajjehs on the ground, where I’ll help them sell their mint leaves and okra as they tell me endless stories about what they’ve seen in their long lives. Just fantasizing about the day, I’m flooded with such powerful emotions that I can’t fathom what I’ll feel when it actually happens.

The occupation has brainwashed them, both the men and the women. It threatens to rob them of their humanity and their conscience, and once you’ve lost those two things, you’ve lost everything that matters in life.

Are you going to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian cause and help in whatever way you can—whether by spreading awareness to others, pressuring your government, or further educating yourself about what’s happening? Or will you ignore what you’ve learned, put this book down, and carry on with your life as usual?

It didn’t matter where we lived, what citizenship we held, or what color our ID cards or license plates were—despite Israel’s efforts to fragment us, we affirmed that we were one people whose fates were inextricably tied. Our pain was shared. We had a common destiny and a common goal: liberation.

Nothing built on injustice and might lasts forever. Eventually, the oppressed find a way to liberate themselves. May we all one day break free from our oppression and imprisonment. Until then, the struggle continues.