Rethinking the Politics of Israel/Palestine: In Defence of Egalitarian BI nationalism

This talk argues that egalitarian bi-nationalism is better equipped to address the underlying issues of ongoing conflict in Israel/Palestine than the liberal and secessionist national frames. Egalitarian bi-nationalism, the talk argues, better satisfies the urge for self-determination of Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews than the benign neglect majoritarianism of the liberal state or ethnic secession and the partition of the two-state solution. Reflecting on both the realities of war in the Middle East and the political economy of occupation, the author argues that egalitarian binationalism’s focus on envisioning affective relations of belonging based on an ethics of equality, parity, mutual legitimacy, and cohabitation offers more resources for historical reconciliation and decolonization in Israel/Palestine than the rival accounts that have been attracting attention in both media and scholarly discourse.

About the speaker

Bashir Bashir is associate professor in the department of sociology, political science and communication at the Open University of Israel and a senior research fellow at the Van Leer Jerusalem Institute. During the academic year (2024-2025), he was a fellow at the Wissenshcaftskolleg zu Berlin. His primary research interests are nationalism and citizenship studies, liberalism, democratic theory, decolonization, the politics of reconciliation, and alternatives to partition in Palestine/Israel. Among other numerous publications, he is the co-editor of The Holocaust and Nakba: A New Grammar of Trauma and History (Columbia University Press, 2018); and The Arab and Jewish Questions: Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond (Columbia University Press, 2020). His writings have appeared in English, Hebrew, Arabic, Italian, German, Portuguese, and Japanese.