What Now

A stunning, soul-stirring, philosophical, and political treatise on what liberation for Palestine and our world will look like in the twenty-first century. 'At once searing, loving and rousing, this is an acrobatic feat of political leadership from a generational talent'
Naomi Klein
Palestine is a litmus test - the repercussions of which will go beyond the Middle East, extending outward across the world, argues writer Tareq Baconi. There are only two possible outcomes to the ongoing apartheid and genocide: justice or annihilation.
Drawing from Baconi's extensive academic and organizing work with Palestinian and international activists, and from decades of long-standing principles, What Now distils three strategic priorities for a free Palestine to guide activists and allies: refuse the prospect of a divided homeland, resuscitate the revolutionary politics of the Palestinian commitment to freedom and justice, and decompose Zionism.
Imagining a Free Palestine is not the same as turning back the clock to pre-1948, Baconi writes, but a new struggle for a just future in the aftermath of Zionism-not by fighting Jewish presence in Palestine, but by ending Jewish political exclusivity. A free Palestine would heal the wounds left in the wake of the second world war, by challenging and upturning the colonial and genocidal mindsets that continue to animate Western thought-the ramifications of justice would therefore extend far beyond the shores of Palestine. Praise for Tareq Baconi's Fire in Every Direction: 'In stunning detail - both physical and emotional - Baconi traces a story of personal and communal alienation, longing, and liberation'
Omar El Akkad, author of One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This 'Moving and generous'
Isabella Hammad, author of Enter Ghost 'Luminous, moving, and achingly beautiful'
Maaza Mengiste, author of The Shadow King

Tareq Baconi is a Palestinian writer, scholar, and activist. He is the grandson of refugees from Jerusalem and Haifa and grew up between Amman and Beirut. His contributes essays to The New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books. He has also written for film; his award-winning BFI short, One Like Him, a queer love story set in Jordan, screened in over thirty festivals. He is the author of What Now, Fire in Every Direction, and Hamas Contained: A History of Palestinian Resistance, which was short-listed for the Palestine Book Awards.