Review: They Called Me a Lioness (Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri)

Ahed Tamimi and her family have spent their whole lives fighting for a free Palestine. From the village of Nabi Salih in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Tamimi has been an icon of resistance since she was a young girl but gained international attention in 2017 after she was arrested and jailed for eight months at the age of 16 for slapping an Israeli soldier who had just shot her cousin in the head. A video of the slap spread on social media, bringing much-needed attention to the violence in the West Bank. 

Her memoir, They Called Me a Lioness by Ahed Tamimi and Dena Takruri, beautifully humanizes Palestinians and their fight for liberation, centers women in the resistance movement, and highlights the cruel injustices of the decades-long occupation. In her eight months in prison, Tamimi helped turn the Israeli female prison unit into a school, where she and other incarcerated Palestinian women studied legal texts. Tamimi dreams of being a lawyer and helping to liberate her people. Despite perpetual attempts by the Israeli media to portray her as a terrorist, Tamimi’s words and actions are those of an intelligent, brave, and inspiring young woman who deserves just as much attention as Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani activist and 2014 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, with whom her story shares many similarities. Western media has tried to ignore Tamimi, probably in part due to how her blond hair and blue eyes fly in the face of gender and racial stereotypes that are built into layers of prejudice and systems of oppression in both the US and Israel. 

This past November, Tamimi was arrested yet again based on a fake social media post, along with hundreds of others, in retaliation for the attack on October 7th. She was released later that month, along with 29 other women or minors, in exchange for 10 Israeli hostages as part of the temporary truce with Hamas that lasted from November 24th to November 30th. 

As all eyes are on Gaza, it is important that we also pay attention to the escalating settler violence in the occupied West Bank. Under international law, all settlements (government-sponsored) and outposts (not government-sponsored) are considered illegal and in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which bans an occupying power from transferring its population to the area it occupies. The UN has condemned these settlements multiple times. Still, the US has consistently protected Israel and its settlements because, I cannot stress this enough, we are a white supremacist colonial shit show of a country and the most deadly terrorist state in the world that does not give a fuck about human rights or Palestinian lives or sovereignty. 

Since October 7th, 370 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank, including almost a hundred children. One of these victims, an American teenager from New Orleans named Tawfic Abdel Jabbar, was ambushed and shot in the head by settlers while traveling to a barbecue with a friend. So, what is Biden doing? Next to nothing. 

On February 1st, President Biden imposed sanctions on several Israeli settlers for attacking Palestinian communities in the occupied West Bank for “undermining stability and security in Israel and the Palestinian territories.” The white house also announced a decree to penalize “extremist settler violence” in the West Bank. US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said in a statement that settler violence “poses a grave threat to peace, security, and stability in the West Bank, Israel, and the Middle East region, and threatens the national security and foreign policy interests of the United States.” I’m sorry, but if your definition of “peace, security, and stability in the West Bank” was illegal settlements, Israeli occupation, and the decades of violence as seen by Ahed Tamimi, the UN, and every human with a brain, you need a new definition of “peace, security, and stability.” 

Let’s be real; this is a fucking copout. Biden doesn’t give a shit about Palestinians. He is just scared about his plummeting poll numbers and the growing opposition to his unwavering support of Israel’s genocidal campaign. These sanctions are about the upcoming 2024 election, not saving lives or condemning settler violence. Biden waited well over one hundred days to decide that enough Palestinians had died in the West Bank for him to lift a finger for a hollow PR stunt. The US has been covering for Israel and Israeli settlers for decades and shows no signs of stopping. 

There is no acceptable “stable” equilibrium of dead Palestinians to US profit margins. If my “national security” requires killing children, my “nation” shouldn’t be secure. As Audre Lorde said, “We are citizens of the most powerful country in the world, a country which stands upon the wrong side of every liberation struggle on earth.” This “review” has gotten a little off track, but fuck that. Ahed Tamimi is the perfect example of a young Palestinian who, for her entire life, has been dehumanized, slandered, abused, and labeled a terrorist for “throwing stones,” defending her family and daring to pursue basic human rights for her community. There is no better way to cut through flimsy zionist propaganda than seeing this occupation through the eyes of the occupied because once you do, it becomes impossible to deny their humanity and right to resist. They Called me a Lioness is a wonderful place to start.