Non­fic­tion

Con­nect­ing with the Enemy

  • From the Publisher
May 16, 2017

Katz has writ­ten a path-break­ing his­to­ry of joint non­vi­o­lence by Jews and Arabs, Israelis and Pales­tini­ans in the arts dia­logue, envi­ron­ment, edu­ca­tion, sports, sci­ence, civ­il soci­ety, med­i­cine busi­ness, com­mu­ni­ca­tions, tech­nol­o­gy, reli­gion, women’s rights, and com­mu­ni­ty activism. This is the first com­pre­hen­sive his­to­ry of unprece­dent­ed grass­roots efforts to forge non­vi­o­lent alter­na­tives to the lethal col­li­sion of the two nation­al move­ments. Katz brings to light the work of over five hun­dred groups in which Jew­ish and Arab chil­dren and elders, garage mechan­ics and physi­cists, and lawyers and pris­on­ers spoke truth to pow­er pro­tect­ed the envi­ron­ment, demon­strat­ed peace­ful­ly, mourned togeth­er, stood in sol­i­dar­i­ty, and advo­cat­ed for jus­tice and secu­ri­ty. She cri­tiques and assess­es the sig­nif­i­cance of their work, explor­ing why these good-will efforts have not yet man­aged to end the con­flict. This pre­vi­ous­ly untold sto­ry of Israeli and Pales­tin­ian work togeth­er chal­lenges the nar­ra­tives of ter­ror and despair or mon­sters and heroes. Thou­sands of ordi­nary peo­ple in Israel the West Bank and Gaza engaged in a daz­zling array of dar­ing and vision­ary endeav­ors for more than a century.

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