I wanted to explain more of who she was and why she was fighting back. The soldiers had just shot her 15-year-old cousin in the head with a rubber-coated steel bullet. Ahed was determined that her garden would not be used by soldiers as a vantage point for sniping at other youths in her village.
Ahed's arrest was sinister, in that soldiers came into her house at night. Many Palestinian children are arrested from their beds at night. Psychologically, this can be very damaging to a child - sending a message that one has no safe place.
Ahed was kept for weeks without trial in a military prison - but she became a symbol for the determination of the Palestinian people to win a homeland. People all over the world responded to her struggle and millions have signed petitions calling for her release. Ahed was given a sentence of eight months.
MAB: Eight months for a slap seems way out of proportion, yet, given the way most arrested Palestinian youth are treated by the Israelis, she was lucky to get off so "lightly." Your book provides an excellent background, one that is essential in order to understand the reasons for the Palestinian resistance.
PM: The book was intended to provide some insight into Ahed's background and character and so relatives and friends were interviewed. I took some holiday time off work to go to the West bank. I travelled to the village of Nabi Saleh, a centre of resistance, and met many members of the Tamimi family - including Ahed's dad, Bassem.
Also, the book gives a background into the historical occupation of Palestine by Israel. Furthermore, there is a chapter in the book about the scale of the imprisonment of Palestinian children by the Israeli occupation. The book educates about the apartheid judicial system where Palestinian children face questionable justice in a military court system which contrasts enormously with the civil court system offered to the Israeli settler children of the West Bank. For instance, a child from an illegal Israeli settlement caught throwing stones at people will be most likely given a telling off by the authorities whereas a Palestinian child might be given literally months in a military jail for the exact same offence. The Military courts are used for Palestininans - an Israeli living on the West Bank (in an illegal settlement) would be tried in Israeli civil courts: A two track system - a racist system.
Ahed Tamimi addressing an Israeli soldier, from the cover of the book, 'Ahed Tamimi: a Girl Who Fought Back'
(Image by c. Haim Schwarczenberg) Details DMCA
MAB: Yes, AVAAZ has put together a document that includes statistics about the number of Palestinian children who are in Israeli prisons, some of whom are only 11 or 12 years old, as well as the slanted court system, which I covered in a previous article here.
The last chapter of your book, about the role of women in the quest for liberation, was inspiring, can you share a bit more about that?
PM: Yes, the final chapter of the book offers a way forward for liberation of Palestine which will include women in leading roles. I am grateful that Ahed's aunt, Manal Tamimi, wrote this chapter. Initially, Manal was interviewed for the book by my co-author, Paul Heron, but we quickly realized that Manal had an experienced and eloquent voice from the front line, and we were so pleased when she agreed to contribute a chapter.
Selected quotations from Manal's chapter:
...When they take you to the court, it's another form of punishment. It was 2.30 am, the middle of the night, and they took us in a metal bus, without windows. We were handcuffed all the time, and they adjusted the air conditioning so it was very cold. It was raining and you are in a metal cage, in a freezing, metal, military bus. They transported us from one prison, then to another. Finally, we are left in in a very cold cell, its floor -- full of water, so all the time you're sitting with wet legs. They kept us until 7 or 8 pm, into the start of the night, in that cold, wet cell. Then we returned back, the very same way, and arrived, where we started, at 11.30 pm or midnight. So, after almost 24 hours of this transportation I was very tired -- exhausted. It's emotionally draining, because you can't sleep, they give us one meal, which is just to keep us alive -- so it's very, very difficult.
...The first Intifada continued until approximately 1993, and dissipated with the proposed potential of the Oslo Accords.
The role of Palestinian women evolved in the context of the development and expansion of popular participation in all areas of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, leading to the formation of the -- Women's Supreme Council for Women's Frameworks in the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO).
...As a general view, the first and second Intifada came as a result of the continued occupation of Palestine. It also reflected the deterioration of the situation in the country. In both of these movements the Palestinian people rose up against injustice, occupation, oppression, murder, administrative detention, unemployment and difficult living conditions.
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