Alliances of Understanding was established two years ago. It began as a day-long event focused on Palestinian culture, film, and poetry. The timing was fraught: held just four months after the events of October 7 and the devastating violence that engulfed Gaza, we were walking a fine line. It was essential that the loss of life—Palestinian and Israeli—was acknowledged; that the long-standing plight of Palestinians over more than 70 years was neither dismissed nor diminished; and that our discussions did not slip into the scourge of antisemitism. At a moment when even talking felt difficult, we nevertheless brought together a day of talks grounded in the best traditions of academia: a commitment to truth, empathy, and clear-eyed critical inquiry, resisting the powerful currents that inevitably pull at any discussion of Israel and Palestine.
The atmosphere and energy of the day made it clear that we could not simply pack up and move on. What had been organised under the banner Alliances of Understanding quickly became the name of a new initiative. We emerged—event by event, conversation by conversation—as a project underpinned by the idea of an affective community, borrowing the term from Leela Gandhi’s 2005 monograph, Affective Communities.
This February marks two years of work and collaboration. To build on what has come before, we have a programme of forthcoming events: from a screening of the acclaimed docudrama The Voice of Hind Rajab, to a panel discussion examining British and Western complicity in both the history and present of Palestine, and a music concert raising funds for charities working in Ukraine, Palestine, and Sudan. Alongside this, we are in discussion with a potential publisher about shaping an edited volume that brings together the work we have been developing. Learn more about all this on our events page. Join us as we continue a journey.
Alliances of Understanding 