In This Place Together A Palestinian's Journey to Collective Liberation

by Eilberg-Schwartz, Penina; Khatib, Sulaiman

• ISBN13: 9780807055427
• ISBN10: 0807055425
• eBook ISBN(s): 9780807046845
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2022-04-19
• Publisher: Beacon Press
• More Book Details
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Summary

A narrative meditation on joint nonviolence, opening a window to the questions of power, multiple narratives, and imagination that touch on struggles for justice everywhere.

As a Palestinian youth, Sulaiman Khatib encountered the occupation in his village and attempted to fight back, stabbing an Israeli. Imprisoned at the age of 14, he began a process of political and spiritual transformation still unfolding today. In a book he asked Penina Eilberg-Schwartz, an American Jew, to write, and based on years of conversation between them, Khatib shares how his activism became deeply rooted in the belief that we must ground all work—from dialogue to direct action to healing—in recognition of the history and humanity of the other. He reveals how he became convinced that Palestinian freedom can flourish alongside Jewish connection to the land where he was born.

In language that is poetic and unflinchingly honest, Eilberg-Schwartz and Khatib chronicle what led him to dedicate his life to joint nonviolence. In his journey, he encountered the deep injustice of torture, witnessed the power of hunger strikes, and studied Jewish history. Ultimately, he came to realize mutual recognition, alongside a transformation of the systems that governed their lives, was necessary for both Palestinians and Israelis to move forward. Still, as he built friendships with Israelis and resisted the occupation alongside them, he could not lose sight of the great power imbalance in the relationship, of all the violence and erasure still present as they dreamt forward together.

Intimate and political, In This Place Together opens us up to the dangers and hopes of working with others across vast differences in power and experience. And it opens a new space, shapes a third narrative, and finds another world that can exist—though it’s often hard to see—inside this one.

Author Biography

Penina Eilberg-Schwartz writes and lives in the Bay Area and has worked on issues of justice in Israel-Palestine with several organizations. She is a member of IfNotNow, a movement working to transform the American Jewish community’s support for the occupation into a call for freedom and dignity for Palestinians, Israelis, and all people.

Sulaiman Khatib was born in Hizma/Jerusalem and lives in Ramallah. He is an active member of various programs aiming to promote a peaceful solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. He is cofounder of Combatants for Peace, a nonprofit Israeli/Palestinian peace-building organization.

Table of Contents

A Note on Transliteration
A Note from Penina
A Note from Sulaiman
Prologue

PART ONE

CHAPTER 1
Ta‘mira

CHAPTER 2
Ra’s al-Tawil

CHAPTER 3
A Hidden Place

CHAPTER 4
‘Ayn Farrah

PART TWO

CHAPTER 5
Shibl

CHAPTER 6
Clockwork & Prayer

CHAPTER 7
Mayy wa Milh

CHAPTER 8
Abnaa’ al-Intifada

CHAPTER 9
Books & Gas

CHAPTER 10
A New World Coming

CHAPTER 11
Many Pieces of Paper

CHAPTER 12
Little Chance

PART THREE

CHAPTER 13
‘Awda (Return)

CHAPTER 14
Holy Mountain

CHAPTER 15
Helicopters

CHAPTER 16
Properties of Snow

CHAPTER 17
Shared Words

CHAPTER 18
Trees

PART FOUR

CHAPTER 19
Bullets & Theater

CHAPTER 20
The Year of Long Drives

CHAPTER 21
If I Forget

CHAPTER 22
If I Remember

PART FIVE

CHAPTER 23
Balloons

CHAPTER 24
You Can’t Get There from Here

CHAPTER 25
The Stone and the Valley

CHAPTER 26
A Small Revolution

Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Sources
Notes