From Prison to Peace: Sulaiman Khatib’s Journey Beyond Violence

 

Airdate: September 17, 2025

Julie Rose: Is peace in the Middle East even possible now?

Sulaiman Khatib: Everybody is able to change, I believe, so, I'm really feeling grounded and optimistic that it will change.

Julie Rose: Hey, it's Julie. Welcome to Uncomfy, a show about sticking with moments that challenge us even when they're uncomfortable. And I know you're probably wondering, "Why would anybody choose to be uncomfortable?" But I know from personal experience, and maybe you do too, that sometimes a little discomfort has benefits if we can stay open and curious about it. So, that's what we're here to explore. Let's get Uncomfy.

We're coming up on two years since the October 7th Hamas-led attacks on Israel and Israel's subsequent military response in Gaza. The conflict has led to devastating humanitarian, social and political consequences for both Palestinians and Israelis. So, today we're gonna speak with someone who has spent the last 20 years of his life trying to help Palestinians and Israelis see one another as potential partners in peace. Sulaiman Khatib is from Hizma, it's a village north of Jerusalem. He's Palestinian, and as a teenager in the 1980s, he got involved in the Palestinian struggle for liberation, throwing stones, writing graffiti on public buildings, hanging Palestinian flags, and ultimately, when he was just 14, he and a friend attacked two Israeli soldiers. Khatib was sentenced to 15 years in prison, and there he learned the principles of nonviolent protest. He participated in hunger strikes. He studied the writings of Gandhi, Mandela, and Martin Luther King Jr. And in an attempt to learn about his quote unquote "enemy," he even studied the history of the Jewish people and taught himself Hebrew and English. Khatib says his studies led him to realize he'd been wrong about the Jewish people being his enemy; instead, he says he realized hatred, fear, and collective trauma were their common enemies. After 10 years and five months in prison, Khatib was released and co-founded Combatants for Peace, which brings former Israeli and Palestinian fighters together to pursue non-violence side by side. They've been the subject of two documentaries. One came out in 2016 called, "Disturbing the Peace,"  and a new one called, "There Is Another Way," is currently screening at events around the United States. Sulaiman Khatib, thank you so much for joining me today on Uncomfy.

Sulaiman Khatib: Thank you, Julie, for hosting me. Thank you.

Julie Rose: Would you take us back to your time in prison? Was there a specific experience or person that helped to shift your perspective?

Sulaiman Khatib: Uh, in my case, it was a long journey, and first time I encounter, uh, non-violence, when I was 15 years old, together with teenagers, we launched a food hunger strike in order to improve the daily life conditions in jail. The strike was for 16 days where we don't eat, we drank a lot of water and salt, and my last hunger strike was for 17 days. This is, uh, one of the main transformative experiences I had in jail alongside other, uh, reasons and experiences that, uh, showed me the power of non-violence.

Julie Rose: How did it work in that case, your 17-day hunger strike? You, you, there were changes?

Sulaiman Khatib: We had the, yeah, the prisoners, in solidarity with each other, we were very well organized. We usually demand, like, 30 demands, and we had the negotiation team and so on, and usually the, the Israeli administration would accept most of our demands and then we stopped. This is one example how, uh, non-violence really can work in, in, in imbalanced situations, obviously. but I have to say, I didn't become Israeli, that's not my story. So, I kept really grounded in my own story as a Palestinian, and, actually, um, that complex, I think, and that's maybe the invitation for people that listen, like, "How do I recognize there are other narratives without losing my own self?" That's a complex, uh, journey.

Julie Rose: Yeah. Sulaiman, that, that's really profound, and I want to probe that a little bit more, that, the notion that you could recognize other narratives, the, even the, like, the validity, the humanity of someone who sees the world so differently from you and also kind of maintain your own narrative and stay true to your own identity. You, you've talked about how after you got out of prison, um, and began working in bridge building and trying to find nonviolent ways to work side by side, ultimately, you, you began to have the idea, along with others, to create this organization, Combatants for Peace. This was, it was officially announced in 2006, but I understand there was quite a bit of work that was going on in secret behind the scenes leading up to that. Would you share a bit about what it took to be able to create, co-found an organization with former members of the Israeli military and Palestinian fighters like yourself, who had been aligned with Fatah, right, and be able to work together in public?

Sulaiman Khatib: Mm-hmm. Uh, I forget to mention, also, connected to your question that, in my journey, the first thing I come to realize that there is no military solution for our cause.

Julie Rose: No military solution? Hmm.

Sulaiman Khatib: From a personal experience, like in my hand, It's not just from uh books, you know, I, and other friends, has, uh, been open, after being in jail, um, you know, like, in the Palestinian side, more at the beginning talking about non-violence and then, uh, believing that we have to find, uh, partners in the Israeli side. And there were Israeli groups that refused to continue serving in the Army, and then through a common friend that he suggested us to meet around Bethlehem area. Of course, like, to be honest, like, we don't trust each other. We come from, like, a very mistrust, these are, like, officers and soldiers, like, just recently left the Army, so there are a lot of psychological barriers and lots of traumas and, yeah, it take a lot of courage to overcome this and take a long time to build this trust and share the personal stories,

Julie Rose: so,

Sulaiman Khatib: and some people left and some people continue with us.

Julie Rose: Yeah, some people couldn't, didn't wanna do it or continue. So, so these were secret meetings, actually? So, you were, You you, you were able to connect with, um, people who were resisting, who had left the Israeli army, um, no longer wanted to participate. You had become convinced there was no military solution, so you were able to, to start to meet, but you had to do so in secret. How did you build trust between one another?

Sulaiman Khatib: Yeah, so to be honest, we didn't even have facilitation or anything. It's just, like, we come, and some of us, like myself, speak both languages, so that help us to communicate, uh, with a lot of, uh, suspicious, you know? The Israelis thought we would kidnap them, maybe. The Palestinians, we thought this belonged to the Israeli intelligence or something. So, with the time, I think, like, sharing our personal story become, like, an important tool that we used to confess what we each one did.

Julie Rose: Confess what you had done toward the other or toward, you know, as part of your military experience?

Sulaiman Khatib: Uh, for the Israeli, military. We don't have military, we were in jail.

Julie Rose: You, fighting, right,

Sulaiman Khatib: but still it was really tense for me. I saw when we did the first time, like, uh, speaking about personal stories, it was tense. I attacked two Israelis when I was 14, so this, these people might be connected to the people I'm talking to. And, uh, Chen Alon, which is another, uh, founder of Combatants for Peace, he become, like, really a family now for me, uh, he shared a story and part of it was demolishing Palestinian houses next to where we are meeting actually, and there are Palestinians listening in the room. It's not easy moments, but it's really important to, uh, speak about our stories, take responsibility, and, uh, yeah, go from there. And now, storytelling become a very important tool for us in Combatants for Peace since then.

Julie Rose: You say storytelling has become an important part of what you do. Tell me a little more about what the strategy has been with Combatants for Peace. So, the, it's co-founded, co, co, co-run by, um, Israeli and Palestinian individuals. Um, every time I see, uh, you know, there are many panels where I've seen you, like, on the same panel together. You talk about one of your co-founders as being like family, Chen Alon. So, what is the work that you're actually doing that you feel has made a difference over the years?

Sulaiman Khatib: Uh, so, Combatants for Peace has been around almost 20 years, as we mentioned, and we do a lot of things, like, through the years. And I, maybe just to highlight, uh, we started almost 20 years ago doing the Palestinian/Israeli Memorial Ceremony to commemorate the people that killed in this conflict as a part of re-humanization process that we are doing, which is important here 'cause there are a lot of, uh, dehumanizations in this part of the world. We have thousands and thousands of people, like 10,000 people, 15,000 people joining this, and global, it became a global event, actually, as a sacred event.

Julie Rose: Sulaiman, where do you hold this, um, joint memorial, um, ceremony, uh, honoring those who have died in conflict on, on all sides?

Sulaiman Khatib: Yeah, usually this is in the, uh, same evening of the Israeli memorial, uh, National Memorial Ceremony where Palestinians are not part of that.

Julie Rose: Hmm.

Sulaiman Khatib: So, this used to be "alternative ceremony," but now it become the biggest one after the governmental one, and the other one, for example, we, we have also, the Nakba Ceremony, which is the Palestinian Catastrophe, we do it together with our Israeli partners. It's called Nakba, the Catastrophe of '48, and it's really important to recognize the past and the trauma, the collective traumas that happen to our peoples here in order to move forward. And so many other actions, tomorrow, for example, because we, started recently doing a joint, uh, sit-in or, uh, rallies asking, uh, demand, uh, ending the war and prisoners exchange and the peace agreement. I was gonna ask you how,since October 7th, 2023. I was, I was wondering how, how you have been able to continue and how that has changed your work. You say one thing is that you do vigils, rallies, sit-ins, joint Israeli/Palestinians demanding an end to the conflict and a return of the prisoners.

Julie Rose: Is it harder to recruit people to your side or to your cause given the conflict over the last two years?

Sulaiman Khatib: Uh, well, like you mentioned, after October 7th, our work become much important and harder somehow. Um, and now two years later, almost, I think there are more and more people coming to realize that there is no military solution, like we had in the past. There are more people joining us and supporting us compared to the past, and for us, Combatants For Peace, other organizations, we are not alone, we're trying to show the possibilities. That's why the movie called, "There is Another Way," because we believe there is another way, and we know that our peoples and our peoples in history has lived together, and it's possible, and if we as ex-combatants were able to change and transform and work together, and we come as full truth; it's not just love and, uh, you know, like, all, all good, we, we really brings the reality, obviously, and the challenges and everything. Uh, everybody is able to change, I believe, so I'm really feeling grounded and optimistic that, it uh, this darkness now, it's very dangerous moments while we're talking, to be honest, now, but I believe, uh, people are awakening, and it it will change.

Julie Rose: You say you're feeling very hopeful in this moment. Hopeful of what? What is the, what is the positive future that you could envision that, that you hope might be the other way?

Sulaiman Khatib: Yeah, the, I dream, uh, of a collective liberation because I think—

Julie Rose: collective, sorry, I wanna make sure I understand. You said a

Sulaiman Khatib: "collective liberation." Yes, for our people, both, because I don't think Israelis are free either. I mean, we live under the occupation, obviously, and there is a power dynamic and all of that. But I, I know well both societies, because I'm Palestinian and I'm very open, have Israeli friends and partners, and I follow what's happening in, in, in both sides closely 'cause I live here in this reality, and I see also there is, hope and vision and, uh, political imagination that we could live next to each other and, and share the same space instead of, uh, either/or.

Julie Rose: Just to be clear, are you, uh, is it, is it a Palestinian state and Israeli state? Is it one, one, one nation where you exist with co-equal power? What, what is your hope?

Sulaiman Khatib: Yeah, I, I spoke about collective liberation, means that we, uh, both people become liberated and free. I know there are many, uh, solutions out there. There are two state solution, one state solution, there are federation, there are two state, one homeland. I believe, like, in solutions that are connecting us than separating us, uh, and I'm less really busy with whatever arrangements, uh, "If there was a will," as they say, "There is a way," and to rebuild, uh, to rehumanize each other and to build the trust among our people, and that our people can, you know, most of the people here, it's hard to sell hope, Julie. That's the hardest challenge.

Julie Rose: It's hard to sell hope. Oh, I can only imagine.

Sulaiman Khatib: Yes.

Julie Rose: Yeah.

Sulaiman Khatib: Yeah, especially now, like, you know, um, and I think maybe part of our mission is really to keep hope alive, and it's not fake hope. Like, uh, like one of our guys said, uh, after one successful event of the joint memorial ceremony where, this was a few years ago, we have, like, almost 15,000 people. and, uh, thousands of people were online, and he said, um, "I hope this event will become the formal Palestinian/Israeli future event for all the people here." So, I think our work can show that this cooperation works, and Combatants for Peace, practically talking, uh, started as a two-state solution, like, 20 years ago, and to be honest now, not everybody is on that page, um, because of the settlements, because of whatever, so we have different people in the organization now, they, they have different opinion. I just wanna be honest about this.

Julie Rose: Right, so you don't have agreement within your organization about exactly what that solution looks like, but it's collective liberation. I think it's so interesting that the hope, then, is grounded, it sounds like, in people being able to see that there are, in fact, others that they've considered the enemy as well as others who, who are like them, who are able to see one another as partners, and if you can at least do that, and if you can commemorate and memorialize loss and mourn together, even, even as "enemies," quote unquote, then, then there is hope, then, then, then it's hope for something other than perpetual conflict, effectively.

Sulaiman Khatib: Mm-hmm. Definitely, and I, um, I can say, "Look, let's say this. Like, from our personal experiences, the zero-sum game is not gonna work." I'm not gonna give up on my Palestinian, uh, uh, belonging, and Israelis are not gonna give up on their, uh, uh, identity to say, and it's very hard, but for some people, this is either/or; it's not gonna work, and I feel we have a responsibility, not just for Palestinians/Israelis, but rather beyond for the world to show a different, uh, way, uh, of being, and, "Which world do we want to, to see and to create together?" And that's a bigger question than Palestinians/Israelis.

Sulaiman Khatib: Some people want wars forever, and some people want to find, uh, common ground, and we have that choice.

Julie Rose: Sulaiman Khatib is co-founder and a former co-director of Combatants for Peace. They're featured in a new documentary called, "There is Another Way." The website to learn more and hopefully find a screening in your community is thereisanotherwayfilm.com. Sulaiman Khatib, thank you so much for taking time today to tell us about your story and your vision. I really appreciate it.

Sulaiman Khatib: Thank you, Julie. Thanks a lot.

Julie Rose: And thank you for getting Uncomfy with us today. Sulaiman's story is a powerful reminder to me that leaning into discomfort can transform not just our own lives, but entire communities. So, I'd love to hear about a moment when you chose the harder, braver path. Share your story at uncomfy@byu.edu or connect with us on Instagram; we are @uncomfy.podcast.

Uncomfy is a BYUradio podcast. Samuel Benson produces it, and the team includes Hyobin Kim and Sam Payne. Our theme music was composed by Kelsey Nay. I'm Julie Rose. Can't wait to get Uncomfy with you again next week.