“What we are doing is more dangerous than to shoot a gun and then run away. You tie yourself to an olive tree, and you wait for
the army to come.” Mohammed Khatib, Palestinian activist.
“Sometimes you have to run very fast to remain in the same place. But when you’re active you build something, and if you don’t stop in the middle and leave in despair, it will bring results.” Michal Shwartz, Jewish Israeli activist.
In Israel-Palestine, grim facts keep piling up on the ground. The people in charge talk, but offer nothing new.
International and Canadian editions
Our Way to Fight offers inspiring grassroots action, and tenuous paths to a liveable future.
Author Michael Riordon documents creative resistance
on both sides of the separation wall. In thousand year-old olive groves, besieged villages, refugee camps, checkpoints and barracks, here are the dangerous lives of non-violent activists: crises that stirred them to act, the work they do, the risks they face, and the small victories that sustain them.
Comments/Reviews:
“A book like a pocket lamp that contests darkness: the darkness fabricated by those who have promoted a global blindness concerning what has happened in Palestine and Israel during the last sixty years. The battery of this remarkable lamp is true observation,
and with it you discover exemplary courage in the most unexpected
places. Pocket it!”
John Berger, author of From A to X: a fiction inspired by the people of Palestine.
US edition
“Our Way to Fight explores the stories of men and women who create glimmers of light and hope in the dark despair surrounding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A close look at activists who dedicate their lives to the struggle for social justice, Michael Riordon’s portraits reveal what it means to be a courageous person, a seeker of truth. This is a vital intervention for all who care about peace and justice.”
Neve Gordon, author of Israel’s Occupation
“Riordon presents lyrical portraits of nonviolent peace activists from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. From Israeli draft refusal to Palestinian opposition to Israel’s security wall, the efforts to circumvent the occupation and bridge the gaps between the peoples are many and varied, though activists are often forced to retreat in the face of forces in both societies that see cooperation as capitulation. Critically, Riordon includes many representatives of Israel’s own Palestinian community – the 20% of Israel’s population who are Palestinian but have Israeli citizenship, and are only rarely considered in any treatment of the conflict. Even while maintaining a sober assessment of the difficult road activists face, simply by demonstrating that Israelis and Palestinians can and do work in common cause, Riordon offers an important corrective to the standard tale of an intractable conflict.”
Publisher’s Weekly, US, March 2011
Our Way to Fight is available from bookstores in Canada, the US, the UK, and elsewhere. Also from book providers online.
Our Way to Fight 