Samer Alatout, UW-Madison Buttel-Sewell associate professor of Community and Environmental Sociology, has been learning, teaching, thinking and talking about people and their environment for years.
He’s also a Palestinian-American, born in Nablus but he says in a post on X on October 27th, “The main thing I believe is that this process of reconciliation, of opening up, of relating differently, of thinking of alternative futures, of ending more than a century of pain, of finding solid grounds for love and solidarity, is the only hope for different futures.”
He says in the same post that what bothers him most since October 7th is “the hardening of old tired concepts and the lack of imagination. We are all pushed so hard to become defensive again. For example, how can I not be pushed to the most radical defensive posture when a whole genocide is being committed against a people with the support of right and left, of all of Europe, of most Israelis? I cannot. Nor should I."
He adds, “But, at the same time, we need to all be thinking constantly: beyond organizing for the moment, beyond the need to witness it, beyond the need to create pressures in order to stop the massacres and the genocide, how are we to create the basis for alternative futures?"
Professor Alatout has been speaking in many places before and since October 7th to explain how and why the current situation in Israel and Gaza did not begin on that date - and working to create an understanding and framework on how to find a new and better way for people to share space and resources.
