This paper, first presented at a memorial conference for the Palestinian psychiatrist and activist Eyad el-Sarraj, examines the connection between non-violence and acknowledgement of injuries and trauma in the Israel-Palestine context. It explores the complexity of mutual recognition in a situation of actual oppression, suggesting the counter-intuitive value of the victim’s power to humanize the perpetrator. It develops the idea of the third, the witness and the framing opposition ‘only one can live’ versus ‘every life matters,’ drawing on Primo Levi’s evocation of ‘the drowned and the saved’ and placing the issue of dignifying suffering alongside recognition of the ‘monstrousness’ in each subject and in relation to the productivity of the ethos of ‘Ubuntu.’