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Reading the Conflict - Our Way to Fight: Israeli and Palestinian Activists for Peace

This week's recommendation comes days before we greet Yom Atzma'ut, Israeli Independence Day, and the Palestinian Yawm al-Nakba, Day of the Catastrophe. Among supporters of Israel (regardless of our take on Palestinian nationalism and the two-state solution) it can be painful to take in that Israel's establishment is held in the hearts of Palestinians as a catastrophe - and yet if after two decades of peace efforts we've learned nothing else, we've certainly learned this: As we celebrate, others mourn.

I think this is the very fact that stands in the way of peace activism for many -  I think there comes a moment when some feel they must choose between their own joy and someone else's sorrow, and it can feel more right to focus solely on our own people's joy. I think I understand that - but I also think it gets in the way of resolving the conflict.  
But I also think it gets in the way of resolving the conflict, of finding more joy.

As we move toward Yom Atzma'ut and Yawm al-Nakba then, I recommend a brand new book - just out this week - in which Israeli and Palestinian peace and community activists talk about their way to fight for their peoples: Together.

In Our Way to Fight: Israeli and Palestinian Activists for Peace, author Michael Riordon essentially upends the zero-sum game paradigm, simply by presenting portraits of nonviolent activists from both sides - and, crucially, including the oft-forgotten Palestinian-Israeli community in the conversation.

The efforts to get around Israel's occupation, heal wounds, and reach out are diverse, from theater work to draft refusal, legal appeals to traveling health clinics. The separation wall, meant to keep Israelis and Palestinians apart, often serves as a unifying factor, as people on both sides and up and down its length do what they can to oppose its presence in the heart of the land they share.

Tragically, one of Riordon's best-known sources, Juilano Mer-Khamis, was assassinated in the Palestinian city of Jenin last month, before Our Way to Fight appeared on shelves. Mer-Khamis was the son of a Jewish mother (Arna Mer Khamis, best known from the documentary Arna's Children, which Juliano co-directed) and a Palestinian father; he defined himself as "100% Jewish and 100% Palestinian."

Mer-Khamis served in the IDF, but worked with his mother to establish the Stone Theater in Jenin in 1993 - only to see it bulldozed by the IDF in 2002. His Freedom Theater was created in 2005 from the same impetus, "to provide young people of both sexes - a conscious, even provocative choice in a male-dominated society - with a safe space to express themselves" - particularly important in a town where, from 2000 to 2004, 61 children were killed.

From the destruction of the Stone Theater, to the arrest of Israeli activists, each of Riordon's interviewees speaks of paying a price, and of real loss - loss of loved ones, of autonomy, of dreams for the future - but tellingly, each also speaks of hope, even if hard-won. That is perhaps the most powerful take-away from Our Way to Fight.

Veteran Israeli activist Haggai Matar was one of the founders of the draft-refusing Shministim and is today involved with New Profile, an organization focused on the demilitarization of Israeli society.

Reflecting on the relentless nature of his activism, Matar says simply: "Palestinians don't have a choice; struggle is forced on them."

"We [Israeli activists] can't afford to say 'Sorry, I'm depressed, I can't make it today.' We can just be part of the struggle, tell people about it, and keep going so there will be people on both sides who know and trust each other.

"If we can keep these bridges alive, then maybe one day at least we will have something to build on."

Emily L. Hauser is an American-Israeli  freelance writer who has studied and written about the contemporary Middle East since the early 1990s, and is an active member of a Chicago-area Conservative congregation. She blogs at Emily L. Hauser In My Head and can be followed on Twitter. She also crossposts at Angry Black Lady Chronicles (despite being only an Angry Lady and not at all Black) and atheist-interfaith blog NonProphet Status. All recommendations are entirely her own.