Summary
White Jewish American author, activist and oral historian whose memoir An American Feminist in Palestine: The Intifada Years (1994), tracing four trips to Palestine between 1988 and 1991, is read in Chapter 1 of Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine as an early, exemplary text of the Report-Back genre of solidarity tourism (Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, PDF p.40).
Details
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Kelly reads Gluck’s book for two tropes: the refrain that she could not believe what she saw until she saw it, and the narration of Palestine as rendering concrete and human what had been abstract — witnessing thus supplanting citational practice; the 226-page book has no citations or bibliography and references only Israeli historian Benny Morris, without citation (PDF p.43, 45-46).
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Gluck’s own scenes as quoted: fleeing Israeli police tear gas on Salah Al-Din Street in East Jerusalem in December 1988-January 1989 and being sheltered by a Palestinian shopkeeper — “I am fleeing from Jews—Israelis—and being protected by Arabs—Palestinians. Everything was turned upside down” (PDF p.44).
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In a spring 2019 interview with Kelly, Gluck recalled her California State University, Long Beach faculty post, her defense organizing for the Los Angeles 8, and her decision to travel: “I felt like it was important to travel as a Jew,” “so I could come back as a Jew and make my statements”; on using racialized privilege to be heard: “It’s clear that we’re using [racialized privilege]. And it’s the only way to get heard” (PDF p.51-52).
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Rabab Abdulhadi’s blurb praised the book’s refusal to impose her own brand of “‘Western’ feminism” on Palestinian women; Barbara Harlow’s praised the questions it raised on the eve of the Oslo Accords (PDF p.41).
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Chapter 1’s continuation records her asymmetry of risk on first intifada delegations (expulsion for her against detention and imprisonment for her guide Jawdat, and curfew for a Gaza camp), her admission that concern for her hosts was subsidiary to fear of being discovered by “my people”, her critique of hospital visits as voyeuristic, and her lifetime of work after return — teaching about Palestine, organizing in solidarity, and starting and running Radio Intifada (Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, PDF p.56-57, 61, 67).
Related pages
Invited to Witness — Solidarity Tourism across Occupied Palestine, Report-Back, Colonial Calculus of Veracity, First Intifada