Manal Tamimi. Activist from Nabi Saleh, Palestine// Occupation is an equivalent for killing hopes, it’s a name for losing your security under security´s justification, it’s about assassinating your dreams even before you are able to dream them…
My name is Manal Tamimi from the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
Since I was a small girl I saw Israeli occupation forces raiding my village, for security reasons, arresting my beloved under the same justification…as a woman it is very difficult to live under such circumstances, specially when you know that you are considered a person who is threatening the Israeli security just because you are a Palestinian.
My village, Nabi Saleh, is resisting the occupation by organizing weekly nonviolent protests. Because of that, me and many other women from the village are denied from enjoying their rights. In Ramadan (our holly month) we were denied from taking a permit to go to Jerusalem to pray, which is something I couldn’t understand, how practicing our prays or visiting our holly places could be a threaten to the Israeli security? It is just a pray! Also, I have recently been denied even for going to the Italian consulate in Jerusalem to apply for my visa, so I could travel to Italy.
One of the hardest experiences that Palestinian women face, is when they are not allowed to visit their father or husband in the Israeli prisons, the Israeli occupation forces justify this rejection, most of the time, by saying that there is no relationship between the wife and her husband because the fathers names are not the same…but tell me…how come fathers names between a wife and a husband be the same??!!
And of course, once again, the security reason shows up…
Despite all these violations we try to live our lives as normal as we can, but the worst thing is when this justification reaches you inside your house, while you are sleeping, threatening your children in their beds…the worst nightmare any mother could live, when she sees her child been waken up in the middle of the night by angry soldiers (or even soldiers raiding houses just for fun), handcuffed and blindfolded under security reasons…
Being a Palestinian woman means to live with fear day by day, it means to give up hopes and dreams, being a Palestinian mother means you have to live the pain of losing your son or husband, a brother or a father every minute of your life, all this suffering you must live is just because you are a Palestinian in the first place, a women in the second and a threatening to the Israeli security at the third place.
No woman in the whole world would accept to live this kind of life.
We are just normal people trying to live a normal life, to enjoy our freedom.
Our children are not terrorists, they are just children trying to live their childhood. Nobody has the right to steal our security from inside our homes under this fake illusion, calling security what should be called threat…Who has the right to decide what can be considered security reasons or who are the people considered as dangerous persons?
Occupation forces have no right to decide, have no right to threaten the peace and security of civilians living in the occupied territories and justify it under unreal excuses.
Show of force leads to disappointment which lead to violence, if you want to feel secure give others their security, if you want justice for somebody, give justice for everybody, if you want to enjoy your freedom, give others their freedom, otherwise everybody, from both sides, is going to live miserable and insecure life.
