politician Member of the Althing
Amal was born in 1960, growing up in Wadi-el-Joz in east Jerusalem. Her father was Salim Abu Khaled al Tamimi (d 1969), a businessman and passionate activist, and her mother Salim"s second wife Nazima abu Rajabb al Tamimi (d 1981). Her siblings are Yonnes (b 1950), Rowda (b 1948), Safah (b 1949), Amneh, and Salman (b 1955).
She was the second foreign-born person (after Paul Fontaine Nikolov. The first foreign-born woman) to sit in the Icelandic parliament (a substitute for Lúðvík Geirsson in 2011 and for Katrín Júlíusdóttir in 2012). Yonnes moved to Iceland in 1966, Amneh some years later, and Salmann in 1971.
Amal experienced the Six-Day War in 1967.
The fact that Yonnes was in Iceland at the time meant that he lost his right to reside in Palestine. She was politically active through most of her time in Palestine.
At 13 she was imprisoned pending trial for two weeks for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers, and received a six-month suspended sentence. Later Amal said that she felt she had no rights as a woman under Shari"a Law.
In 1987, she gained a diploma in business studies via the Young Women’s Christian Association and worked for an non-governmental organization.
There she worked as a cleaner.
Then in a bakery and in fish processing, and learned Icelandic. In 2001, at the age of 41, Amal went to the University of Iceland, taking a Bachelor in Social Sciences in 2004, with a Bachelor thesis entitled "Terrorism in Palestine: Religion or Colonial Imperialism?" In 2002, she took Icelandic citizenship (for which she had to give up Palestinain citizenship) and on 24 October 2003 founded West.O.M.E.N. (Women of Multicultural Ethnicity Network). From 2004, she was a counsellor at the Alþjóðahúson
