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They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom
A Palestinian activist jailed at sixteen after a confrontation with Israeli soldiers illuminates the daily struggles of life under occupation in this moving, deeply personal memoir.
“What would you do if you grew up seeing your home repeatedly raided? Your parents arrested? Your mother shot? Your uncle killed? Try, for just a moment, to imagine that this was your life. How would you want the world to react?”
Ahed Tamimi is a world-renowned Palestinian activist, born and raised in the small West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which became a center of the resistance to Israeli occupation when an illegal, Jewish-only settlement blocked off its community spring. Tamimi came of age participating in nonviolent demonstrations against this action and the occupation at large. Her global renown reached an apex in December 2017, when, at sixteen years old, she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier who refused to leave her front yard. The video went viral, and Tamimi was arrested.
But this is not just a story of activism or imprisonment. It is the human-scale story of an occupation that has riveted the world and shaped global politics, from a girl who grew up in the middle of it . Tamimi’s father was born in 1967, the year that Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and he grew up immersed in the resistance movement. One of Tamimi’s earliest memories is visiting him in prison, poking her toddler fingers through the fence to touch his hand. She herself would spend her seventeenth birthday behind bars. Living through this greatest test and heightened attacks on her village, Tamimi felt her resolve only deepen, in tension with her attempts to live the normal life of a daughter, sibling, friend, and student.
An essential addition to an important conversation, They Called Me a Lioness shows us what is at stake in this struggle and offers a fresh vision for resistance. With their unflinching, riveting storytelling, Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri shine a light on the humanity not just in occupied Palestine but also in the unsung lives of people struggling for freedom around the world.
“What would you do if you grew up seeing your home repeatedly raided? Your parents arrested? Your mother shot? Your uncle killed? Try, for just a moment, to imagine that this was your life. How would you want the world to react?”
Ahed Tamimi is a world-renowned Palestinian activist, born and raised in the small West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, which became a center of the resistance to Israeli occupation when an illegal, Jewish-only settlement blocked off its community spring. Tamimi came of age participating in nonviolent demonstrations against this action and the occupation at large. Her global renown reached an apex in December 2017, when, at sixteen years old, she was filmed slapping an Israeli soldier who refused to leave her front yard. The video went viral, and Tamimi was arrested.
But this is not just a story of activism or imprisonment. It is the human-scale story of an occupation that has riveted the world and shaped global politics, from a girl who grew up in the middle of it . Tamimi’s father was born in 1967, the year that Israel began its occupation of the West Bank and he grew up immersed in the resistance movement. One of Tamimi’s earliest memories is visiting him in prison, poking her toddler fingers through the fence to touch his hand. She herself would spend her seventeenth birthday behind bars. Living through this greatest test and heightened attacks on her village, Tamimi felt her resolve only deepen, in tension with her attempts to live the normal life of a daughter, sibling, friend, and student.
An essential addition to an important conversation, They Called Me a Lioness shows us what is at stake in this struggle and offers a fresh vision for resistance. With their unflinching, riveting storytelling, Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri shine a light on the humanity not just in occupied Palestine but also in the unsung lives of people struggling for freedom around the world.
288 pages, Hardcover
First published September 6, 2022
557 people are currently reading
18077 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 959 reviews
November 21, 2023
They Called Me A Lioness is a must-read for people attempting to make sense of recent events in Israel and Gaza.
June 4, 2023
I listened to Ahed Tamimi's memoir, They Called Me a Lioness: A Palestinian Girl's Fight for Freedom and it's fascinating, terrifying, and inspirational.
Tamimi is a Palestinian activist who was arrested and imprisoned at age 16 for slapping an Israeli soldier. Tamimi and her family live in Area 3 of the occupied West Bank in Palestine which is run by the Israeli government and military.
The daily atrocities inflicted on Palestinians is indescribable as well as Tamimi's experience while imprisoned.
Tamimi is a Palestinian activist who was arrested and imprisoned at age 16 for slapping an Israeli soldier. Tamimi and her family live in Area 3 of the occupied West Bank in Palestine which is run by the Israeli government and military.
The daily atrocities inflicted on Palestinians is indescribable as well as Tamimi's experience while imprisoned.
January 11, 2025
Powerful, raw memoir about Ahed Tamimi’s girlhood living under illegal Israeli occupation as well as her imprisonment for her activism. Her commitment to Palestinian resistance and freedom is unwavering. The writing in this memoir is simple and clear, though the events portrayed are disturbing, traumatic, and highlight the necessity of a free Palestine. Appreciate her for using her voice and sharing her story, though in an ideal world she wouldn’t have had to.
August 30, 2022
I was so excited to read Ahed's memoir after following her story closely in the news and on social media. What an incredibly brave young woman with a story that everyone needs to hear. She does a great job of explaining Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine and the history behind it, so this is also a great book for anyone looking to learn more about Palestine. She holds such tenacity and optimism even in the face of the many injustices she's been through, most of which are unimaginable horrors for the majority of us. Highly recommended reading.
October 23, 2024
Should be required reading for everyone
February 21, 2024
"I’m a firm believer that the international community must boycott Israel and pursue it for war crimes in the international courts. I also believe that the only possible and acceptable resolution at this point is a one-state solution. My vision is for us to live in a single democratic state where everyone is equal, Muslim, Christian, and Jew."
"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."
"Imagine that my story is yours and that all this has happened to your family, on your land. What would you do if your country, the only place your family has known for generations, were occupied by a foreign military? How would you respond if your land were continually being stolen? What would you do if you grew up repeatedly seeing your home raided? Your parents arrested? Your mother shot? Your uncle killed? Try, for just a moment, to imagine that this was your life. How would you want the world to react?"
seriously please read this book.
FREE PALESTINE
"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."
"Imagine that my story is yours and that all this has happened to your family, on your land. What would you do if your country, the only place your family has known for generations, were occupied by a foreign military? How would you respond if your land were continually being stolen? What would you do if you grew up repeatedly seeing your home raided? Your parents arrested? Your mother shot? Your uncle killed? Try, for just a moment, to imagine that this was your life. How would you want the world to react?"
seriously please read this book.
FREE PALESTINE
December 13, 2023
A worthwhile read for anyone who is trying to “both sides” this conversation. Free Palestine.
September 4, 2022
There were multiple times I found myself closing this book & thinking back to some moments I remember reading about in the news or some moments from my own personal life. There were also times I had to stop reading because I couldn’t help but cry. This is a must read book to anyone who wants a glimpse about Palestine through the eyes of a Palestinian child/young adult. It’s powerful and it’s an important narrative.
October 10, 2022
The writing style makes this book easy reading, but the content contained is absolutely horrific, heart breaking, and hard to truly comprehend. If this was fiction it would be overkill, barbaric, cruel; the fact that it is factual, current, and ongoing is inexcusable. There is no humanely possible way that we can still be ignorant or apathetic to the plight of the Palestinians. It is an occupation. It is apartheid. It is oppression. I often don't review adult non fiction, but because this is ongoing and we have the power to do something, BDS, I'm reviewing this book. The book describes torture, death, abuse, cruelty, you name it, but I think mature young adult readers can and should read it, along with every adult. A history of major events in Palestine interwoven with Ahed Tamimi's own experiences in the last few years, she was 16 when imprisoned, so the recent past, as lived by her and understood by her, is powerful, moving, and inspiring.
SYNOPSIS:
The book shares a lot of facts, but because the facts are contextualized you feel yourself absorbed by what it means to have your land taken, your home bulldozed. It isn't just statistics of growing settlements, it is being cutoff from the Mediterranean Sea that you can see from the hills in your village, but cannot access because of checkpoints and armed guards, and walls. It is understanding why throwing a rock, or slapping and kicking are a form of defiance, not terrorism. It is truly seeing the situation from someone living it every day. There is nothing for me to critique or opine about in her story, nor in the book and presentation. It is hard to read, it is harder yet to know that it still persists.
WHY I LIKE IT:
I love that I sobbed and clenched my fist and Googled again what companies and organizations to Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS). That is what the book is asking those of us who support the Palestinian cause to do. She says they don't want our pity, they want our action. They want us to look at South Africa and realize the power of economic efforts by the global community on an issue. They want us to be educated about what they endure and educate others. They want us to help stop the erasure of Palestine and Palestinians. I'm so grateful that the book pointed out the direction we should take, a bleeding heart is not enough.
I love that Ahed owns her own learning and growth as she got to know Israeli Jews sympathetic to the right of Palestinians, that protested with her and her village, that fought the legal battles using their privilege to help the oppressed. I love that the book is personal and that she doesn't apologies, that she addresses the criticisms against her, that she calls on her own people to unify, and that she is so so fierce.
I can't imagine what her life is like, and it is truly humbling to imagine yourself in her shoes, in her mother's shoes, her father's. It isn't a life anyone would chose, it isn't a spotlight you would want. No parent would willingly push their child to this, so that she at such a young age had to endure and become what she is today, is humbling.
Islam is not a big part of the book, but Ramadan, and jummah prayers, janaza and praying salat are occasionally included.
SYNOPSIS:
The book shares a lot of facts, but because the facts are contextualized you feel yourself absorbed by what it means to have your land taken, your home bulldozed. It isn't just statistics of growing settlements, it is being cutoff from the Mediterranean Sea that you can see from the hills in your village, but cannot access because of checkpoints and armed guards, and walls. It is understanding why throwing a rock, or slapping and kicking are a form of defiance, not terrorism. It is truly seeing the situation from someone living it every day. There is nothing for me to critique or opine about in her story, nor in the book and presentation. It is hard to read, it is harder yet to know that it still persists.
WHY I LIKE IT:
I love that I sobbed and clenched my fist and Googled again what companies and organizations to Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS). That is what the book is asking those of us who support the Palestinian cause to do. She says they don't want our pity, they want our action. They want us to look at South Africa and realize the power of economic efforts by the global community on an issue. They want us to be educated about what they endure and educate others. They want us to help stop the erasure of Palestine and Palestinians. I'm so grateful that the book pointed out the direction we should take, a bleeding heart is not enough.
I love that Ahed owns her own learning and growth as she got to know Israeli Jews sympathetic to the right of Palestinians, that protested with her and her village, that fought the legal battles using their privilege to help the oppressed. I love that the book is personal and that she doesn't apologies, that she addresses the criticisms against her, that she calls on her own people to unify, and that she is so so fierce.
I can't imagine what her life is like, and it is truly humbling to imagine yourself in her shoes, in her mother's shoes, her father's. It isn't a life anyone would chose, it isn't a spotlight you would want. No parent would willingly push their child to this, so that she at such a young age had to endure and become what she is today, is humbling.
Islam is not a big part of the book, but Ramadan, and jummah prayers, janaza and praying salat are occasionally included.
December 16, 2023
The easiest five stars I’ve ever given. Read this book and let it anger you. Read, reread and print off chapter 8, one of the best hope poems of all times.
September 30, 2025
If you read one book this year, make it this. Ahed Tamimi is a Palestinian woman who famously raised her fist at an IDF soldier as a child, which was captured via photo and shared with the world. Tirelessly dedicated to a Free Palestine, Ahed organized and protested in Palestine as a child. She was jailed as a teenager. Her story is one of a moral conviction I can only hope to one day carry in myself. This is a story of occupation, of hope, of girlhood, of oppression, and resilience.
This book brought me to tears more than once — the reality of the occupation is an unimaginable horror on the lives of Palestinians. Despite everything, they maintain hope, love, and conviction for a better world. Tamimi is an inspiration to all women in the world!
This book brought me to tears more than once — the reality of the occupation is an unimaginable horror on the lives of Palestinians. Despite everything, they maintain hope, love, and conviction for a better world. Tamimi is an inspiration to all women in the world!
January 1, 2025
At this stage, we all know what Israel is. However, reading a first-hand account by a young woman is incredibly emotional.
We hear on the news that Isreal controls the water but reading how that affects everyday life hurts my heart.
We know Israelis steal homes, imprison minors, and happily fires at children, but reading it up close is maddening.
We know Israel had no respect for human life.
We know the difference between a Jew and a Zionist. The cost has been horrendous, but you've exposed yourself Israel and the world sees who you are.
I'm glad we have so many resources to continue to educate ourselves, and the message is getting out, and eyes are being opened.
Five stars - it's short. It's to the point, and it's another voice we need to amplify.
We hear on the news that Isreal controls the water but reading how that affects everyday life hurts my heart.
We know Israelis steal homes, imprison minors, and happily fires at children, but reading it up close is maddening.
We know Israel had no respect for human life.
We know the difference between a Jew and a Zionist. The cost has been horrendous, but you've exposed yourself Israel and the world sees who you are.
I'm glad we have so many resources to continue to educate ourselves, and the message is getting out, and eyes are being opened.
Five stars - it's short. It's to the point, and it's another voice we need to amplify.
September 23, 2024
For those who said that this was a tangible, approachable way to learn more about Palestinian history, struggle, and resistance, THANK YOU!
I really learned a lot from this book and found all of it really impactful to how I think about Palestinian history and our collective fight against colonialism. I think it gave me a WAY better picture than half of the other books I've read really breaking down the history. I had no idea about so much!
I really learned a lot from this book and found all of it really impactful to how I think about Palestinian history and our collective fight against colonialism. I think it gave me a WAY better picture than half of the other books I've read really breaking down the history. I had no idea about so much!
December 16, 2023
I don’t have enough words to describe how devastated I’ve been over the past 68/69 days.
May I always carry this devastation and anger with me until we’re all free.
May my beloved Ahed see her beautiful people free.
May I always carry this devastation and anger with me until we’re all free.
May my beloved Ahed see her beautiful people free.
Read
March 10, 2026They Called Me A Lioness
19/02/2026
21:03 PM
The urge to read has finally returned. Considering that Ramadan has now started, I forgo my usual stories of daring characters, mad heists and destructive betrayals to turn to something that, at the very least, will be informative.
The stark difference between fantasy and reality is once again shown as instead of being slowly eased into a lyrical description of a magical land, I fall flat on my face as I am thrust into the prison cell of an Israeli detention centre. The unease sets in immediately, followed by the sudden awareness of my surroundings.
I’m sitting here, wrapped in a warm blanket and enjoying a cup of tea with my post-Iftar snacks while I read the memoir of a woman as a 16 year old girl. A girl shivering and trying not to cry, who doesn't know if she’ll ever see her family again, conscious of the cameras that follow her even into the bathroom, and I feel so ashamed.
_________________________________________
Finished - 23/02/2026
Let me introduce you to Ahed Tamimi, for those of you who do not know her.
Ahed was only 16 when she was dragged from her home in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers and taken to prison.
She was taken because of her defiance towards men trespassing in her home, and shooting her 15 year old cousin in the head. Because it was humiliating for Israel that the world saw a young, defenceless girl slapping an armed soldier.
But more than that, they wanted a reason to arrest her.
From the age of 14, Ahed had become recognisable to the military for standing up to a soldier who had been strangling her younger brother. The saddest part, in some ways, is that Ahed had never wanted to become this person. She didn’t want the fame, or the target on her back and the death threats that accompanied it. When the rest of her village, Nabi Saleh, went out to face the soldiers in their peaceful protests, Ahed would hide at home, scared. It’s human nature to want to hide away from that which scares you. Except she didn’t have a choice. When she joined the protests, she faced the threat of being shot right where she stood. When she hid at home, the military fired a tear gas grenade right into her house. When she fled the house and the chemicals, a soldier ran towards her and fired several times. For no reason.
Can you imagine how terrifying that would be? That even when you were too scared to go out into the streets, the danger pursued you? That the military would shoot grenades into your home, the place you believed to be safest?
Upon being arrested, she was interrogated for hours and then taken to prison which was honestly heartbreaking in a completely different way.
Because in prison, she met other girls who had been arrested for similar reasons. Ahed tells us that most of the time, these children are just arrested for throwing stones. Would you like to know what these… evil, stone-throwing minors asked Ahed when she joined them?
What the latest fashion trends were. What new songs were out.
It impacts you in a different way, realising that young girls, the same as you and I, who love movies and books, music and desserts, who would have been just as obsessed with matcha, bubble tea and all the other things that we’ve had the privilege of experiencing, have never had the opportunity of living a normal life.
But even in that extremely difficult situation with abusive guards, undecided prison sentences and attempts to stop them from educating themselves, they never lost their humanity, compassion and sense of sisterhood. They took care of each other, supported each other, and comforted whichever girl was not feeling so strong that day. The unity they displayed in the face of injustice and hardship was so touching that Ahed broke down when she was finally released, feeling immeasurable guilt at leaving her sisters behind.
______________________
Ahed says something at one point, that, quite frankly, both startled and embarrassed me. She says. “In this one life I was given, I knew I had to do something to help my people. If I didn’t, I’d have to answer to God for it”.
A Palestinian girl, stuck in the middle of an occupied country, in a land where soldiers train their guns on her without cause and where she is forbidden from entering cities that she has every right to, to go to the beach, go to school, follow her dreams in safety, is worried about God asking her what she chose to do with her life in the midst of her peoples’ oppression.
WE are the ones living in safety and security, we have the ability to raise our voices without getting shot at, we live without fear of someone coming and knocking down our homes with no regard for who may be inside. She has every right to be terrified and say to God that there was nothing she could do but instead she was out there, face to face with guns every day because she understood she had a responsibility, not just as a Palestinian, but as a human being.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not even about Palestinians and Israelis, or religion or whatever. Ahed stood shoulder to shoulder with Israelis many times and even protected them with her own body. It’s about humanity. About innocent people being massacred and oppressed and abused in ways we can’t even imagine and which is continuing because those who can affect immediate change benefit from murder and cruelty and propaganda. What does it matter to them if the money they receive is stained with the blood of little children, as long as they get it in the end?
I know there’s not much we can do but that’s why we must do whatever we can. Because at the end of the day, we too will have to answer for what we did with our time and money and privilege, and if we can’t even say hand on heart that we did as much as we could, what hope is there for us? If Ahed feels the pressure of doing whatever she can in her limited capacity, just imagine how much more responsibility is on us.
That’s why we must do whatever we can and KEEP doing it. It’s not about extreme acts that change the world in an instant, it’s about consistency. Keep talking about Palestine. Keep boycotting. Keep educating people. Palestine is not a trend that we talk about when everyone else is and then let it die down, because children being murdered is not something we should get used to. Genocide is not a trend.
______________________
I’ll leave you with one final story.
It’s about a little boy called Ahmed. He was four years old at the time. The age where kids follow you around and ask you incessant questions about things you don’t know the answer to and take 20 minutes to tell a story and fill the house with their dinosaur noises and arguments over who gets to be Spiderman and their 'can I just have ONE more chocolate?'s. Sound familiar? To some of you, maybe?
Well, he was four years old, when the Israeli military threw a firebomb into his home while his family was asleep. His father, his mother and his eighteen month old baby brother died, the baby engulfed in the flames and his parents dying a few days later from the severity of their burns.
Ahmed is now an orphan. He’s too young to fully grasp what this means for him, that he will always feel a sense of loneliness, despite being surrounded by friends and family who love him. He’ll see other children being comforted by their mothers, playing with their fathers and wonder all the time what it feels like.
People will use his story to bring awareness to the plight of the Palestinians and in return, the media will call him a terrorist, say that his family were not murdered for no reason but were stopped in the middle of putting innocent people in harm’s way, or even that the whole thing never happened and there is no little boy who had his family stolen from him.
Meanwhile, Ahmed sat in the hospital, recovering from his third degree burns and drew a picture.
It was of himself, out in the sun, with a hat and umbrella to protect his now sensitive skin.
In the picture, he drew two suns in the sky.
He said he wanted the world to be “extra sunny and bright”.
19/02/2026
21:03 PM
The urge to read has finally returned. Considering that Ramadan has now started, I forgo my usual stories of daring characters, mad heists and destructive betrayals to turn to something that, at the very least, will be informative.
The stark difference between fantasy and reality is once again shown as instead of being slowly eased into a lyrical description of a magical land, I fall flat on my face as I am thrust into the prison cell of an Israeli detention centre. The unease sets in immediately, followed by the sudden awareness of my surroundings.
I’m sitting here, wrapped in a warm blanket and enjoying a cup of tea with my post-Iftar snacks while I read the memoir of a woman as a 16 year old girl. A girl shivering and trying not to cry, who doesn't know if she’ll ever see her family again, conscious of the cameras that follow her even into the bathroom, and I feel so ashamed.
_________________________________________
Finished - 23/02/2026
Let me introduce you to Ahed Tamimi, for those of you who do not know her.
Ahed was only 16 when she was dragged from her home in the middle of the night by Israeli soldiers and taken to prison.
She was taken because of her defiance towards men trespassing in her home, and shooting her 15 year old cousin in the head. Because it was humiliating for Israel that the world saw a young, defenceless girl slapping an armed soldier.
But more than that, they wanted a reason to arrest her.
From the age of 14, Ahed had become recognisable to the military for standing up to a soldier who had been strangling her younger brother. The saddest part, in some ways, is that Ahed had never wanted to become this person. She didn’t want the fame, or the target on her back and the death threats that accompanied it. When the rest of her village, Nabi Saleh, went out to face the soldiers in their peaceful protests, Ahed would hide at home, scared. It’s human nature to want to hide away from that which scares you. Except she didn’t have a choice. When she joined the protests, she faced the threat of being shot right where she stood. When she hid at home, the military fired a tear gas grenade right into her house. When she fled the house and the chemicals, a soldier ran towards her and fired several times. For no reason.
Can you imagine how terrifying that would be? That even when you were too scared to go out into the streets, the danger pursued you? That the military would shoot grenades into your home, the place you believed to be safest?
Upon being arrested, she was interrogated for hours and then taken to prison which was honestly heartbreaking in a completely different way.
Because in prison, she met other girls who had been arrested for similar reasons. Ahed tells us that most of the time, these children are just arrested for throwing stones. Would you like to know what these… evil, stone-throwing minors asked Ahed when she joined them?
What the latest fashion trends were. What new songs were out.
It impacts you in a different way, realising that young girls, the same as you and I, who love movies and books, music and desserts, who would have been just as obsessed with matcha, bubble tea and all the other things that we’ve had the privilege of experiencing, have never had the opportunity of living a normal life.
But even in that extremely difficult situation with abusive guards, undecided prison sentences and attempts to stop them from educating themselves, they never lost their humanity, compassion and sense of sisterhood. They took care of each other, supported each other, and comforted whichever girl was not feeling so strong that day. The unity they displayed in the face of injustice and hardship was so touching that Ahed broke down when she was finally released, feeling immeasurable guilt at leaving her sisters behind.
______________________
Ahed says something at one point, that, quite frankly, both startled and embarrassed me. She says. “In this one life I was given, I knew I had to do something to help my people. If I didn’t, I’d have to answer to God for it”.
A Palestinian girl, stuck in the middle of an occupied country, in a land where soldiers train their guns on her without cause and where she is forbidden from entering cities that she has every right to, to go to the beach, go to school, follow her dreams in safety, is worried about God asking her what she chose to do with her life in the midst of her peoples’ oppression.
WE are the ones living in safety and security, we have the ability to raise our voices without getting shot at, we live without fear of someone coming and knocking down our homes with no regard for who may be inside. She has every right to be terrified and say to God that there was nothing she could do but instead she was out there, face to face with guns every day because she understood she had a responsibility, not just as a Palestinian, but as a human being.
Because at the end of the day, it’s not even about Palestinians and Israelis, or religion or whatever. Ahed stood shoulder to shoulder with Israelis many times and even protected them with her own body. It’s about humanity. About innocent people being massacred and oppressed and abused in ways we can’t even imagine and which is continuing because those who can affect immediate change benefit from murder and cruelty and propaganda. What does it matter to them if the money they receive is stained with the blood of little children, as long as they get it in the end?
I know there’s not much we can do but that’s why we must do whatever we can. Because at the end of the day, we too will have to answer for what we did with our time and money and privilege, and if we can’t even say hand on heart that we did as much as we could, what hope is there for us? If Ahed feels the pressure of doing whatever she can in her limited capacity, just imagine how much more responsibility is on us.
That’s why we must do whatever we can and KEEP doing it. It’s not about extreme acts that change the world in an instant, it’s about consistency. Keep talking about Palestine. Keep boycotting. Keep educating people. Palestine is not a trend that we talk about when everyone else is and then let it die down, because children being murdered is not something we should get used to. Genocide is not a trend.
______________________
I’ll leave you with one final story.
It’s about a little boy called Ahmed. He was four years old at the time. The age where kids follow you around and ask you incessant questions about things you don’t know the answer to and take 20 minutes to tell a story and fill the house with their dinosaur noises and arguments over who gets to be Spiderman and their 'can I just have ONE more chocolate?'s. Sound familiar? To some of you, maybe?
Well, he was four years old, when the Israeli military threw a firebomb into his home while his family was asleep. His father, his mother and his eighteen month old baby brother died, the baby engulfed in the flames and his parents dying a few days later from the severity of their burns.
Ahmed is now an orphan. He’s too young to fully grasp what this means for him, that he will always feel a sense of loneliness, despite being surrounded by friends and family who love him. He’ll see other children being comforted by their mothers, playing with their fathers and wonder all the time what it feels like.
People will use his story to bring awareness to the plight of the Palestinians and in return, the media will call him a terrorist, say that his family were not murdered for no reason but were stopped in the middle of putting innocent people in harm’s way, or even that the whole thing never happened and there is no little boy who had his family stolen from him.
Meanwhile, Ahmed sat in the hospital, recovering from his third degree burns and drew a picture.
It was of himself, out in the sun, with a hat and umbrella to protect his now sensitive skin.
In the picture, he drew two suns in the sky.
He said he wanted the world to be “extra sunny and bright”.
January 9, 2023
EVERYBODH NEEDS TO READ THIS. AMAZING
November 20, 2023
“My vision is for us to live in a single democratic state where everyone is equal, Muslim, Christian, and Jew.”
“May we all one day break free from oppression and imprisonment.”
“May we all one day break free from oppression and imprisonment.”
July 17, 2023
Ahed Tamimi is someone that often comes to mind when I think of indigenous resistance against colonizing occupations. I was really excited when I saw that she had written an autobiography and wanted to hear her story in her own words. I loved Ahed's vulnerability, strength, and her being unapologetically Palestinian. I'm definitely going to add this to the list of books about Palestine I recommend to people who are uniformed about the occupation, ongoing Nakba, and Palestine in general.
Free Palestine from the river to the sea.
Free Palestine from the river to the sea.
October 31, 2023
Never read a book that twisted the reality so much ! Shame that someone published that rubbish
Read
March 28, 2024A week ago today, Ahed was, once again, taken hostage by Israeli occupation forces. May she stay strong and be released soon.
June 28, 2023
2.5 stars, rounded up to 3 thanks to book club discussion. This reads more like manifesto than memoir due to some biased, honestly dry journalism and murky goals. There are some truly devastating scenes comparing Palestine and Israel's divergent (lack of) freedoms, along with some heartfelt messages of making soul sister friends in prison and facing the responsibility of her platform. This is due in part to the media making an example out of young Ahed. While I don't know the full extent of her very real trauma, she doesn't fit the stereotypes, and that's an important road to empathy. However, her maturity and opinions aren't fully actualized yet, and so this feels unfinished.
August 6, 2024
A history-memoir hybrid, Ahed Tamimi's story will stick with me forever. I've read a few books surrounding Palestine in the past year, but I think this is the best one yet.
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April 1, 20242024 reads: 81/250
2024 tbr: 42/120
this memoir follows the story of ahed tamimi, a palestinian activist first arrested at sixteen. this book taught me a lot about the history and ongoing situation of palestine and i’m glad i read it. i think this is a great start for those wanting to learn more about palestine.
2024 tbr: 42/120
this memoir follows the story of ahed tamimi, a palestinian activist first arrested at sixteen. this book taught me a lot about the history and ongoing situation of palestine and i’m glad i read it. i think this is a great start for those wanting to learn more about palestine.
December 13, 2023
The fact that this was published only a year ago 💔💔💔 it was horrifying then, but now…
For whatever it’s worth, Ahed Tamimi’s name will go down in history alongside the likes of Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela.
For whatever it’s worth, Ahed Tamimi’s name will go down in history alongside the likes of Malcolm X, Rosa Parks and Nelson Mandela.
December 5, 2023
Required reading.
January 5, 2024
History: From 1936 to 1939 [before the creation of Israel] was the “Arab Revolt” against British pro-Zionist policies. The UN partition plan soon gave only 42% of the land to Palestinians when it was clear that Palestinians were 67% of the population. “Israel’s campaign to ethnically cleanse the land of its native Palestinian population didn’t stop in 1948. It has never stopped.” Seven million Palestinian refugees now live across the globe. Apparently, Zionists got tired of “wandering the globe” and said, “Screw it, let’s force someone ELSE to wander the globe while we steal and live on their land in a delightfully settler-colonial fashion.” Israel gives Palestinians white license plates which severely restricts the roads they can drive on while the entitled Israelis get yellow license plates which allows them to go anywhere, especially the smooth bypass roads reserved for settlers. Think Jim Crow America – two sets of rules, one extremely restrictive for blacks and the second one for entitled whites.
Ahed’s father was tear gassed before he was ten years old. He was arrested 10 times between 1988 and 2013. One time her father was tortured so badly he “fell into a coma for over a week.” During that time his sister was killed. The joys of waking up to find your own sister is now dead. For Ahed, the IDF are “foreign occupiers on my family’s land”. “It’s not an easy life, and yet, it’s the only one I’ve ever known.” Israel is big on administrative detention, which allows them to jail any Palestinian “for up to six months without having to charge them or give them a new trial.” This way any Palestinian can be jailed for years without ever learning why they are jailed. Think a ‘renewable’ Gitmo. “Every Palestinian knows that there can never be peace in the absence of justice.” “Trying to visit our own property [visit their old spring] meant having a gun drawn [by settlers] on us.” Settler-colonialism in action.
The First Intifada was largely non-violent and consisted of “boycotts, organized strikes, a refusal to pay taxes to the Israelis, marches, and stone throwing.” In response Oslo made Palestinians give “up more of their land and their rights and Israel conceded nothing”. The Second Intifada happened after Ariel Sharon “stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque” which is the third most holy site in Islam. Ahed writes, “What started out as peaceful protests morphed into an armed rebellion, characterized by suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians and soldiers. Many Palestinians including my parents, criticized this form of resistance.” Note that Israel’s wall you would think runs along Israel’s border to “protect” Israel but instead it is intentionally built on Palestinian land, so Israel won’t lose an inch of its own land with this illegal wall. The ICJ in 2004, had declared Israel’s wall illegal.
“The root problem is Israel’s colonial settler project, which seeks to control us, steal our land, and ethnically cleanse us from it.” Zionism is “not a religious problem, but a political one.” Ahed found it devastating watching her own mother pinned to the ground and handcuffed while five soldiers “all men, kicked and punched her.” How dare she resist an illegal occupation and illegal harassment? Soldiers attacked her cousin Mustafa leaving “his right eyeball completely removed from its socket, and the right side of his face looked like it was ripped open.” He was hit in the face with a tear gas canister [yes, shooting humans in the face is illegal]. As a result he died. When soldiers came into your house, they’d take stuff [computers, gas masks, papers, etc.] and you’d never see them again. By 2010, “our home had been raided by the military more than 150 times.” “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.”
Then a tear gas grenade is shot into Ahed’s home and a soldier shoots Ahed in the hand, which breaks her hand. This, leads Ahed to write, “Israel can murder us, displace us, ethnically cleanse us, and usurp our land and resources – all with impunity.” And being inside your home is now as dangerous as being outside; what a joy for parents. Palestinian kids have NOWHERE to play and soccer on turf or grass? That’s only a dream for them. It was common for Ahed to play in streets or hills where she’d trip over exploded weaponry that said, “Made in the United States.” “The camera [at protests] was our weapon and our shield – the most powerful way we could educate the world about the barbarity of Israel’s occupation.”
Settler Morality: Three Israeli settlers forced a sixteen-year-old boy to drink gasoline and then lit him on fire. The autopsy showed he was still alive when he was set on fire that way. Ahed says that staying alive is more powerful and strategic than dying. Rule One: Stay alive. She adds, “my people have dignity and don’t want your pity.”
Throwing Stones: Soldier are wearing bullet proof uniforms and traveling in armored vehicles, so throwing stones is largely symbolic. “To practice non-violence 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 are not victims but freedom fighters.” “Daring to defend what was ours was not a crime. If anything, it was a duty.” “As a population living under occupation, we are granted by international law the legal right to resist through armed struggle.”
Skunk Water: Israel sprays Palestinians with skunk water as a form of crowd control, and another form of humiliation. “Skunk water was invented by an Israeli company called Odortec.” “The sadistic nature of skunk water is that its stench lingers for days, not just on your body and hair, but also in the street. We’d often walk to school struggling not to retch.” At school, they’d be “unable to focus on anything besides fighting the urge to vomit up our intestines.” Evidently, it’s not enough to occupy for 75 years, you also have badger, humiliate, spray, and do oh so much more illegal stuff to those you occupy. Who knew?
Water: “At best we got only about twelve hours of running water a week, compared to the 24 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.”
Tourists can tour Israel with no problem, but Palestinians can’t without permission from the state. “I refused to seek the permission of my oppressors to visit a city they are illegally occupying.” “Jerusalem is and always will be the most important city for the Palestinian people. If we give it up, it means giving up the Palestinian cause.” Could a Palestinian from Gaza get married to Ahed and live with her in the West Bank? You are kidding, right? “there’s be virtually no way for us to get married and live together – or even meet face-to-face, for that matter.”
Trumps election was terrible for Palestinians; he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv – a huge betrayal. But Obama was also a dipshit to Palestinians when he signed [Memorandum of Understanding] giving over $38 billion in military aid to Israel for the next ten years. US taxpayers paying heavily to keep the occupation going – Hey, illegal oppression ain’t going to pay for itself! If a soldier fires a tear gas canister at you, drop an ordinary bucket on top of it, then sit on the bucket and smile back at your occupier. “The goal was to defend our land, and the message was that we rejected the occupation, and we rejected the United States’ role in advancing only Israel’s interests.”
“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.” “While Israelis had lost their temper over my slapping a soldier in the face, none of them seemed concerned about the crime the military had committed by shooting my cousin in the head earlier that same day.” On the BBC, a Likud party member [Oren Hazan] said that Ahed’s famous slap was terrorism. India brutally occupies Kashmir, but if any of the occupied slapped an Indian soldier, that [and not the illegal occupation] would be considered terrorism? See how silly that sounds? This is why when Ahed addressed the Israeli court, she said, “There is no justice under occupation, and this court is illegal.” “Seventy percent of Gaza’s population are, in fact, refugees.”
“International law prohibits an occupying power from transferring prisoners outside occupied territory.” Thanks to the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, if an Israeli married a Palestinian from Gaza or the West Bank, they couldn’t pass Israeli citizenship onto their spouse; to live together the Israeli would have to leave Israel, which is no doubt the very reason for that law. Ahed reminds us that Jews, Christians and Muslims lived peacefully together for centuries in the same area before it was turned into a Zionists Only resort for the morally challenged. She says, “We need a country where Jews and Christians and Muslims can live together as equals, with the same democratic rights and [real] democracy”. This is a far cry from today’s Zionist PR-fueled paranoid fantasy that all Palestinians want the death of all Zionists “from the river to the sea”. Here’s a great Ahed question you’ll never see asked on US TV: Why should Palestinians lose everything they have [their property, their rights, their lives] “for the Holocaust committed by Europeans?” Imagine Ben Shapiro stuttering on that answer, without changing the subject with his patented straw man argument response.
Ahed on her prison life: “You could forget about enjoying one iota of privacy. Being stuck in what felt like a coffin, with ten other teenage girls in your face day in and day out, was bound to drive anyone crazy.” If one girl started to miss their parents, “before you knew it, all eleven of us would be simultaneously weeping.” “In prison I learned the virtue of patience, something I had struggled with before.”
Note that stone throwing by the occupied is punishable “by up to twenty years in prison”, yet “as a population living under occupation, we are granted by international law the legal right to resist through armed struggle.” So how do Palestinians get to exercise their clear legal right if their most benign form of armed struggle gets them imprisoned for up to twenty years? For Ahed the future is clear: “The resistance will continue until we end the occupation.” Israel knows all it has to do is end the occupation; that’s why it must remain unthinkable. For Palestinians staying silent is not an option. Ahed sees many similarities of the Israeli occupation with the history of Black American struggle against Jim Crow and institutionalized racism in the US. What Ahed wants the outside world to do, is to boycott Israel and pursue Israel for war crimes in the international courts. Ahed has no political ambitions and instead is presently working towards a degree in law. She says 700,000 Israelis live illegally in settlements on “stolen land”. If there were no occupation, Ahed says, “how incredible it would be to live with no more checkpoints or soldiers; no apartheid or martyrs to mourn.” She longs to go to Akka and be able to spend the day swimming. What luxury that would be! She prays to God to free her from the occupation. She says, “While the occupation has taken our land, it has taken their humanity.” A brilliant insight.
In the end, Ahed wants you to put yourself in her place and ask, “What would I do?” There is a viral video of Jacob Fauci with his Long Island accent saying to a Palestinian woman, “If I don’t steal your home, someone else will steal it.” Go to You Tube and watch it, and imagine yourself in that woman’s place. Many Black Americans see their history being repeated in the occupied territories, and realize those crimes are now being paid for by our US tax dollars. What a great book by a young person; I’m so glad I took the time to live Ahed’s world for a few hours and try to see things from the point of view of the occupied, day after day, all of the things we take for granted that Ahed can’t do due ONLY the brutal 75-year occupation. For example, as Amira Hass will tell you in Haaretz, if you live in the Gaza Strip, you can’t import cilantro, coriander, sage, jam, chocolate, French fries, dried fruit, fabrics, notebooks, newspapers, instant coffee, heaters, sewing machines, empty flower pots, books, candles, glasses, sheets, blankets, or toys. Even wedding dresses are banned in Gaza! Imagine the US media EVER telling Americans what Israel’s Haaretz tells Israelis. US media is way to the right of Israeli media and we don’t know because [as Haaretz’s Gideon Levy will tell you] we don’t want to know. Great book – read it if you can – or least you have my synopsis here of the key points. Bravo, Ahed.
Ahed’s father was tear gassed before he was ten years old. He was arrested 10 times between 1988 and 2013. One time her father was tortured so badly he “fell into a coma for over a week.” During that time his sister was killed. The joys of waking up to find your own sister is now dead. For Ahed, the IDF are “foreign occupiers on my family’s land”. “It’s not an easy life, and yet, it’s the only one I’ve ever known.” Israel is big on administrative detention, which allows them to jail any Palestinian “for up to six months without having to charge them or give them a new trial.” This way any Palestinian can be jailed for years without ever learning why they are jailed. Think a ‘renewable’ Gitmo. “Every Palestinian knows that there can never be peace in the absence of justice.” “Trying to visit our own property [visit their old spring] meant having a gun drawn [by settlers] on us.” Settler-colonialism in action.
The First Intifada was largely non-violent and consisted of “boycotts, organized strikes, a refusal to pay taxes to the Israelis, marches, and stone throwing.” In response Oslo made Palestinians give “up more of their land and their rights and Israel conceded nothing”. The Second Intifada happened after Ariel Sharon “stormed the Al-Aqsa Mosque” which is the third most holy site in Islam. Ahed writes, “What started out as peaceful protests morphed into an armed rebellion, characterized by suicide bombings targeting Israeli civilians and soldiers. Many Palestinians including my parents, criticized this form of resistance.” Note that Israel’s wall you would think runs along Israel’s border to “protect” Israel but instead it is intentionally built on Palestinian land, so Israel won’t lose an inch of its own land with this illegal wall. The ICJ in 2004, had declared Israel’s wall illegal.
“The root problem is Israel’s colonial settler project, which seeks to control us, steal our land, and ethnically cleanse us from it.” Zionism is “not a religious problem, but a political one.” Ahed found it devastating watching her own mother pinned to the ground and handcuffed while five soldiers “all men, kicked and punched her.” How dare she resist an illegal occupation and illegal harassment? Soldiers attacked her cousin Mustafa leaving “his right eyeball completely removed from its socket, and the right side of his face looked like it was ripped open.” He was hit in the face with a tear gas canister [yes, shooting humans in the face is illegal]. As a result he died. When soldiers came into your house, they’d take stuff [computers, gas masks, papers, etc.] and you’d never see them again. By 2010, “our home had been raided by the military more than 150 times.” “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.”
Then a tear gas grenade is shot into Ahed’s home and a soldier shoots Ahed in the hand, which breaks her hand. This, leads Ahed to write, “Israel can murder us, displace us, ethnically cleanse us, and usurp our land and resources – all with impunity.” And being inside your home is now as dangerous as being outside; what a joy for parents. Palestinian kids have NOWHERE to play and soccer on turf or grass? That’s only a dream for them. It was common for Ahed to play in streets or hills where she’d trip over exploded weaponry that said, “Made in the United States.” “The camera [at protests] was our weapon and our shield – the most powerful way we could educate the world about the barbarity of Israel’s occupation.”
Settler Morality: Three Israeli settlers forced a sixteen-year-old boy to drink gasoline and then lit him on fire. The autopsy showed he was still alive when he was set on fire that way. Ahed says that staying alive is more powerful and strategic than dying. Rule One: Stay alive. She adds, “my people have dignity and don’t want your pity.”
Throwing Stones: Soldier are wearing bullet proof uniforms and traveling in armored vehicles, so throwing stones is largely symbolic. “To practice non-violence 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 are not victims but freedom fighters.” “Daring to defend what was ours was not a crime. If anything, it was a duty.” “As a population living under occupation, we are granted by international law the legal right to resist through armed struggle.”
Skunk Water: Israel sprays Palestinians with skunk water as a form of crowd control, and another form of humiliation. “Skunk water was invented by an Israeli company called Odortec.” “The sadistic nature of skunk water is that its stench lingers for days, not just on your body and hair, but also in the street. We’d often walk to school struggling not to retch.” At school, they’d be “unable to focus on anything besides fighting the urge to vomit up our intestines.” Evidently, it’s not enough to occupy for 75 years, you also have badger, humiliate, spray, and do oh so much more illegal stuff to those you occupy. Who knew?
Water: “At best we got only about twelve hours of running water a week, compared to the 24 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.”
Tourists can tour Israel with no problem, but Palestinians can’t without permission from the state. “I refused to seek the permission of my oppressors to visit a city they are illegally occupying.” “Jerusalem is and always will be the most important city for the Palestinian people. If we give it up, it means giving up the Palestinian cause.” Could a Palestinian from Gaza get married to Ahed and live with her in the West Bank? You are kidding, right? “there’s be virtually no way for us to get married and live together – or even meet face-to-face, for that matter.”
Trumps election was terrible for Palestinians; he moved the US embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv – a huge betrayal. But Obama was also a dipshit to Palestinians when he signed [Memorandum of Understanding] giving over $38 billion in military aid to Israel for the next ten years. US taxpayers paying heavily to keep the occupation going – Hey, illegal oppression ain’t going to pay for itself! If a soldier fires a tear gas canister at you, drop an ordinary bucket on top of it, then sit on the bucket and smile back at your occupier. “The goal was to defend our land, and the message was that we rejected the occupation, and we rejected the United States’ role in advancing only Israel’s interests.”
“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.” “While Israelis had lost their temper over my slapping a soldier in the face, none of them seemed concerned about the crime the military had committed by shooting my cousin in the head earlier that same day.” On the BBC, a Likud party member [Oren Hazan] said that Ahed’s famous slap was terrorism. India brutally occupies Kashmir, but if any of the occupied slapped an Indian soldier, that [and not the illegal occupation] would be considered terrorism? See how silly that sounds? This is why when Ahed addressed the Israeli court, she said, “There is no justice under occupation, and this court is illegal.” “Seventy percent of Gaza’s population are, in fact, refugees.”
“International law prohibits an occupying power from transferring prisoners outside occupied territory.” Thanks to the Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, if an Israeli married a Palestinian from Gaza or the West Bank, they couldn’t pass Israeli citizenship onto their spouse; to live together the Israeli would have to leave Israel, which is no doubt the very reason for that law. Ahed reminds us that Jews, Christians and Muslims lived peacefully together for centuries in the same area before it was turned into a Zionists Only resort for the morally challenged. She says, “We need a country where Jews and Christians and Muslims can live together as equals, with the same democratic rights and [real] democracy”. This is a far cry from today’s Zionist PR-fueled paranoid fantasy that all Palestinians want the death of all Zionists “from the river to the sea”. Here’s a great Ahed question you’ll never see asked on US TV: Why should Palestinians lose everything they have [their property, their rights, their lives] “for the Holocaust committed by Europeans?” Imagine Ben Shapiro stuttering on that answer, without changing the subject with his patented straw man argument response.
Ahed on her prison life: “You could forget about enjoying one iota of privacy. Being stuck in what felt like a coffin, with ten other teenage girls in your face day in and day out, was bound to drive anyone crazy.” If one girl started to miss their parents, “before you knew it, all eleven of us would be simultaneously weeping.” “In prison I learned the virtue of patience, something I had struggled with before.”
Note that stone throwing by the occupied is punishable “by up to twenty years in prison”, yet “as a population living under occupation, we are granted by international law the legal right to resist through armed struggle.” So how do Palestinians get to exercise their clear legal right if their most benign form of armed struggle gets them imprisoned for up to twenty years? For Ahed the future is clear: “The resistance will continue until we end the occupation.” Israel knows all it has to do is end the occupation; that’s why it must remain unthinkable. For Palestinians staying silent is not an option. Ahed sees many similarities of the Israeli occupation with the history of Black American struggle against Jim Crow and institutionalized racism in the US. What Ahed wants the outside world to do, is to boycott Israel and pursue Israel for war crimes in the international courts. Ahed has no political ambitions and instead is presently working towards a degree in law. She says 700,000 Israelis live illegally in settlements on “stolen land”. If there were no occupation, Ahed says, “how incredible it would be to live with no more checkpoints or soldiers; no apartheid or martyrs to mourn.” She longs to go to Akka and be able to spend the day swimming. What luxury that would be! She prays to God to free her from the occupation. She says, “While the occupation has taken our land, it has taken their humanity.” A brilliant insight.
In the end, Ahed wants you to put yourself in her place and ask, “What would I do?” There is a viral video of Jacob Fauci with his Long Island accent saying to a Palestinian woman, “If I don’t steal your home, someone else will steal it.” Go to You Tube and watch it, and imagine yourself in that woman’s place. Many Black Americans see their history being repeated in the occupied territories, and realize those crimes are now being paid for by our US tax dollars. What a great book by a young person; I’m so glad I took the time to live Ahed’s world for a few hours and try to see things from the point of view of the occupied, day after day, all of the things we take for granted that Ahed can’t do due ONLY the brutal 75-year occupation. For example, as Amira Hass will tell you in Haaretz, if you live in the Gaza Strip, you can’t import cilantro, coriander, sage, jam, chocolate, French fries, dried fruit, fabrics, notebooks, newspapers, instant coffee, heaters, sewing machines, empty flower pots, books, candles, glasses, sheets, blankets, or toys. Even wedding dresses are banned in Gaza! Imagine the US media EVER telling Americans what Israel’s Haaretz tells Israelis. US media is way to the right of Israeli media and we don’t know because [as Haaretz’s Gideon Levy will tell you] we don’t want to know. Great book – read it if you can – or least you have my synopsis here of the key points. Bravo, Ahed.
December 7, 2023
Ahed’s story both filled me with rage at the injustice she and all Palestinians have experienced for years, and an incredible sense of awe at the solidarity and resilience among them. The horrors she and all Palestinians continually endure are things I wouldn’t wish on anyone.
In the midst of trying to survive in prison Ahed called on the memories and advice of her loved ones, who had also been arrested and imprisoned, to bring her strength and courage. Her and the other girls imprisoned also fought to educate themselves and bolster morale, despite the obstacles thrown their way. A particularly jarring moment to read, was when Ahed and the other girls in the cell made a makeshift book club and began swooning over a romance novel Ahed was obsessed with. It was a stark reminder of just how young she and other girls were.
P. S. It is worth noting that Ahed befriended many Israelis. Those who left because they didn’t want to fight in the army and those who protested for Palestine’s freedom alongside her. She expresses the hope she felt meeting and befriending all of the Israelis who support a free Palestine and stand with Palestinians.
In the midst of trying to survive in prison Ahed called on the memories and advice of her loved ones, who had also been arrested and imprisoned, to bring her strength and courage. Her and the other girls imprisoned also fought to educate themselves and bolster morale, despite the obstacles thrown their way. A particularly jarring moment to read, was when Ahed and the other girls in the cell made a makeshift book club and began swooning over a romance novel Ahed was obsessed with. It was a stark reminder of just how young she and other girls were.
P. S. It is worth noting that Ahed befriended many Israelis. Those who left because they didn’t want to fight in the army and those who protested for Palestine’s freedom alongside her. She expresses the hope she felt meeting and befriending all of the Israelis who support a free Palestine and stand with Palestinians.
October 28, 2023
I read this book given the current massacre taking place of Palestinians in Gaza. The book is the true story of Ahed Tamimi, a young Palestinian girl (now, woman) and her life living in occupation as well as being a child prisoner in an Israeli prison. Though I am well versed on the history of the region, this book is an excellent gateway for those with little or no knowledge of Palestine’s history with Israel, to gain some basic knowledge. More importantly, it’s an incredibly powerful and moving perspective on what it is like to be a young child and teenager suffering at the hands of the IDF. Ahed recounts traumatic events and pivotal points in history with a gentleness that spares the reader the true horrific details yet still perfectly communicates how damaging and cruel life under illegal occupation has been for Palestinians. I am glad to see she is still alive and wish her nothing but success and for her dreams of freedom to come true. If you’re remotely interested in understanding and building empathy for these people, I implore you to read this as a starting point. 🇵🇸
December 17, 2023
An incredible story about an amazing person. Since this book was written Ahed was imprisoned again and released. A true Freedom Fighter, may Palestinians someday live as they deserve in a free Palestine.
March 3, 2024
Buddy read with Christina!
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