The Icon of Palestine

Palestinian women have been participating in all forms of resistance, including armed resistance, for as long as the Palestinian people have fought for national liberation. More importantly, the struggle of Palestinian women is the history of all Palestinian people’s struggle.

For instance, in the 1930s, a militant women’s group called Zahrat Al-Okhowan was formed to fight the British occupation of Palestine.

Another example was crystal clear in the Palestinian Intifada. A high point of Palestinian women’s involvement occurred during the First Intifada that began in 1987. Women played prominent roles in leading demonstrations, setting up popular relief committees, and most notably in initiating and sustaining boycott campaigns against Israeli products in Gaza and the West Bank. This boycott initiative was incredibly hard to mobilize due to the lack of indigenous Palestinian industry.

 Palestinian women have always been leaders and strugglers in all aspects of working for the freedom of their people, in the streets and in the fields, educating children and raising families, leading in all forms of struggle and playing a key role as political leaders of the Palestinian national liberation movement.

Ahed Tamimi, a Palestinian teenage girl who gained international fame for slapping Israeli soldiers, says she was deeply changed by her eight-month sentence in an Israeli jail but regrets none of her actions. The 17-year-old girl was arrested last December after a video went viral showing her slapping and shoving two Israeli soldiers during a raid on the occupied West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, northwest of the city of Ramallah.

Tamimi was charged with a total of 12 counts, including assault, incitement and obstructing Israeli soldiers as well as stone-throwing. In March, the Palestinian teenager reached a plea bargain with Israeli military prosecution, according to which she was sentenced to eight months in prison and fined $1,500.

Tamimi, released from prison last July 29, has been hailed as a heroine by many Palestinians for bravely standing up to the Israeli military aggression and recognized as a “symbol” of the Palestinian resistance against the Israeli occupation. Tamimi said that her life has been changed a lot. I changed a lot in prison. “I became more focused, more aware also. Prison ages a person. In one day you age 100 years.

Asked if she would have done the same thing if she had known it would land her behind bars for months, Tamimi answered “yes.” She added “I didn’t do anything wrong that I should regret. “If I had known I would be in jail eight months, of course I would have done it because it was a natural reaction to a soldier being in my house shooting at people, people from my village.”

The Palestinian activist also stated that she had decided to study law at university in order to defend the rights of the Palestinian people in international courts and expose the issue of Israel’s occupation to the rest of the world.

After being released from Israeli jail, Tamimi has called for national unity in Palestine in the face of the racist Israeli apartheid regime.

Slamming a recent law passed by the Israeli parliament, which only gives the right to self-determination to Jewish people, the Palestinian activist said in a televised interview in the West Bank that the new law was “a racist apartheid law.”

Tamimi, however, emphasized that such measures taken by the Israeli regime could not change the fact that the people of Palestine were the only ones who can decide their fate based on national unity. She said: “My message as Ahed Tamimi is that we need to create a link between the popular struggle and the national struggle and to boycott and isolate Israel and to try it as a criminal of war.

Thanking all the people, media and campaigners for supporting her, the Palestinian activist called for a similar campaign for the release of other political prisoners, particularly minors, held in Israeli jails.

The 17-year-old Tamimi did not allow the Israeli media organizations present in the event to ask questions, noting that they were part of the Israeli occupation and should be boycotted.

Tamimi and her mother were freed from Israeli jails after completing an eight-month sentence. She was arrested for slapping an Israeli soldier.

Arriving at Nabi Saleh village, Tamimi made brief remarks to well-wishers outside the home of a villager killed by Israeli forces.  She said “From this martyr’s house, I say: resistance is continuing until the occupation is removed.

We salute the women of Palestine, struggling behind bars, throughout Palestine and in exile and diaspora, for the liberation of Palestinian people and Palestinian land.

K.Q.