Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative

by Isabella Hammad

“Rather than wondering about the efficacy of addressing men,” she asks, “can we think of breaking into their awareness as a by-product of us speaking to one another? Can we focus instead on our own networks, on thinking together, on resisting together, on supporting one another—openly?” Writing in English about Palestine, I often find myself asked if my aim is to educate “Westerners,” a suggestion I always find reductive and kind of undignified. But I like this idea of breaking into the awareness of other people by talking candidly among ourselves.

Alaa Abdel Fattah visited Gaza in 2012, he described the situation there as “like it’s been sent back in time from some grim future we haven’t arrived at yet” but to which all of us are headed.