Calls for a new political framework for Israel–Palestine (Chomsky and Pappé Reference Chomsky, Pappé and Barat2015; Farsakh Reference Farsakh2021; Rouhana Reference Rouhana2018) have gained traction alongside the development of a growing body of scholarship that has reshaped understanding of the Israeli–Palestinian question (Chomsky and Pappé Reference Chomsky, Pappé and Barat2015; Pappé Reference Pappé2004; Reference Pappé2006; Reference Pappé2011; Reference Pappé2015; Reference Pappé2017) and spurred alternative approaches to its resolution (Bashir and Dakwar Reference Bashir and Dakwar2014). Three key prescriptions are central to these debates: reconciliation (Bashir Reference Bashir2012; Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004; Reference Rouhana, Bashir and Kymlicka2008; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011; Reference Rouhana2018), decolonization (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019; Busbridge Reference Busbridge2018; Todorova Reference Todorova2015; Reference Todorova2021), and bi-nationalism (Bashir Reference Bashir2016; Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019; Todorova Reference Todorova2021; Young Reference Young2005; hereafter RDB-N). They are all increasingly recognized as forming the basis of a potential new praxis—understood here not as the application of an ideal theory but as the point at which a normative framework becomes action-guiding under conditions of structural domination.Footnote 1
In Israel–Palestine scholarship, reconciliation is theorized as the culmination of asymmetric (economic, legal, political, and sociopsychological) processes aimed at restoring symmetry between Israelis and Palestinians (Rouhana Reference Rouhana2018, 657–59). The intended outcome is mutual recognition grounded in a justly reconstituted political order (Bashir Reference Bashir2012; Reference Bashir2016).Footnote 2
In contexts marked by enduring historical injustice, reconciliation necessarily has a retrospective dimension—engaging questions of acknowledgment, responsibility, and redress (Bashir Reference Bashir2012)—and is therefore sometimes described (in the literature) as “historical reconciliation” (Bashir Reference Bashir2016; Jamal Reference Jamal2011, 260–71).
Decolonization is central to the settler-colonial paradigm because it directly challenges political orders founded on conquest, displacement, and the denial of Indigenous sovereignty (Busbridge Reference Busbridge2018, 3). In the Israel–Palestine context, the settler-colonial paradigm has gained prominence as an analytical lens that does not frame Zionism as a contingent national conflict but rather as a historically continuous structure of domination. This foregrounds the Nakba, land expropriation, and settlement expansion as constitutive features of the political order, rather than residual outcomes of conflict (Chomsky and Pappé Reference Chomsky, Pappé and Barat2015, 10–13).Footnote 3 As the corrective counterpart to settler colonialism, decolonization is commonly associated with emancipatory aspirations such as self-rule, self-determination, freedom, and postcolonial statehood.
Its meaning and political trajectory are, however, deeply contextual (Todorova Reference Todorova2015), especially when settler presence is demographically entrenched and social relations are historically intertwined yet structured by exclusionary ethnonationalism. This applies in Israel–Palestine, where they are shaped by prolonged nationalist framing and further intensified by the two-state paradigm. In this and similar circumstances, decolonization cannot be reduced to cases of settler evacuation or rupture and must, if it aspires to be transformative rather than merely oppositional (Busbridge Reference Busbridge2018, 2), reckon with the significance of ethnonational attachments.Footnote 4
Nevertheless, a large part of the literature on decolonization in Israel–Palestine focuses on institutional propositions vis-à-vis the future postcolonial state (Abunimah, Reference Abunimah2012; Abu-Odeh Reference Abu-Odeh2001; Barghouti Reference Barghouti, Loewenstein and Moor2012; Veracini Reference Veracini2013; Wolfe Reference Wolfe2012), with this emphasis most visible in liberal one-state versus binational debates (Bashir Reference Bashir2016). This results in a situation in which decolonization is frequently invoked as a normative horizon, despite its unfolding as a political and social process being insufficiently clear.
Researchers predominantly consider bi-nationalism to be a one-state proposition, and it is often examined through state-centered approaches that explore models of power sharing (Ghanem and Bavly Reference Ghanem and Bavly2016), such as consociationalism, federalism, or both (Young Reference Young2005). Recent scholarship has expanded bi-nationalism’s theoretical boundaries to address critiques of its communitarian foundations and compatibility with decolonial ideals (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019; Todorova Reference Todorova2015; Reference Todorova2021; Young Reference Young2005). The emergence of egalitarian prescriptive bi-nationalism marked a conceptual evolution that integrated multiple (political, cultural, historical, and social) dimensions under principles of relational egalitarianism.Footnote 5 From this perspective, a postcolonial one-state proposition that rejects ethnonational collective identities would hinder reconciliation, which inherently relies on the acknowledgment of collective identities (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019).
However, I argue that this reveals the core impasse within discussions of a new political framework. The issue is not whether reconciliation ought to be grounded in an egalitarian binational ethos—or in any other one-state political imaginary—but rather that it is commonly treated as contingent on the prior consolidation of a postcolonial polity. As I demonstrate, this reflects a broader limitation in the reconciliation literature (Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004; Reference Rouhana, Bashir and Kymlicka2008; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011; Reference Rouhana2018), in which reconciliation is constrained by a “top-down” conception. Such approaches presuppose formal implementation by state institutions and are typically seen as emerging from elite negotiations within a transitional justice framework. Reconciliation is therefore expected to begin only after a political agreement inaugurates a postconflict era. This postconflict dependency, however, obstructs reconciliation itself; it also weakens the theoretical articulation between reconciliation, decolonization, and egalitarian bi-nationalism, which in turn obstructs a viable praxis, preventing it from emerging from RDB-N.
Addressing ethnonational attachments requires engaging ethnonationalism at both the starting point and outcome level of any decolonizing project. Although egalitarian bi-nationalism is often presented as the most plausible response to persistent ethnonational attachments within a postconflict or postcolonial one-state horizon, it does not resolve the problem at the outset. Proponents of egalitarian bi-nationalism have therefore tended to condition reconciliation on the emergence of a postcolonial political arrangement, arguing that “positive engagements” between Arab–Jewish communities would enable decolonial principles to be implemented and reconciliation facilitated.
However, I contend this condition is both vague and overlaps with reconciliation itself. If “positive engagements” are understood to constitute a reconciliation process, then reconciliation cannot be conditioned on a postcolonial political arrangement, whether binational or otherwise. Instead, reconciliation is the process through which such engagements become possible without reproducing the logic of “false parity” (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 19; Pappé Reference Pappé2013, 350). This does not deny the relevance of political form as such, because different one-state imaginaries—liberal or binational—raise distinct questions of feasibility, protection, and political possibility under conditions of enduring domination (Bashir Reference Bashir2016).
The core impasse addressed here, however, is temporal, rather than institutional: conditioning reconciliation on any postconflict outcome displaces agency and defers transformation. What distinguishes egalitarian bi-nationalism in this respect is not its normative finality but rather its capacity to function as a framework of consolidation—offering collective safeguards under unequal conditions while enabling the formal recognition and institutionalization through which political equality may eventually become meaningful. In this sense, reconciliation operates as a process that precedes and enables institutional transformation, rather than as a reward granted once domination is overcome. Absent this sequencing, bi-nationalism risks consolidating the very identities and power relations it seeks to unsettle.
As such, a top-down approach conditioned by postconflict dependency hampers localized normative agency by shifting focus to the international arena and deferring local action to an indeterminate future. Various theoretical and normative challenges result, rendering articulation between RDB-N suboptimal. A revised theoretical articulation is thus necessary to address these challenges, because reckoning with these impasses is a precondition for any viable praxis.
This leads to the central question I seek to answer: From a praxis perspective, what ought to be the theoretical rearticulation between reconciliation, decolonization of relationships, and egalitarian bi-nationalism? I answer this question by proposing a theoretical rearticulation in which reconciliation functions as an initiating moment. This institutes decolonization of relationships as a transformative trajectory and egalitarian bi-nationalism as a consolidating horizon.
I thus suggest a “bottom-up” conception of reconciliation as both theoretically plausible and normatively desirable. By leveraging a blind spot in the literature—the failure to distinguish clearly between reconciliation as process and reconciliation as outcome—I show that a bottom-up conception is complementary to, rather than conflicting with, top-down reconciliation. As I argue, a bottom-up conception becomes necessary if the pre-/postconflict classification is seen as theoretically inconsistent within settler-colonial contexts and if the assumption of government-driven negotiations is rejected as a methodological fallacy in asymmetric reconciliation processes.
Furthermore, this approach enables a theoretical rearticulation that resolves key impasses by ensuring that the decolonization of relationships acknowledges ethnonational attachments at both the starting point—that is, bottom-up reconciliation—and outcome level (i.e., egalitarian bi-nationalism). By conditioning egalitarian bi-nationalism on a bottom-up reconciliation process, this approach commits to reestablishing symmetry before consolidating formal equality. It thereby strengthens bi-nationalism’s response to critiques (from within settler-colonial studies) that question its decolonial potential by shifting its justification from historical argument to political condition. Rather than responding to the argument that Israeli Jewish national rights within a postcolonial polity are tantamount to settler colonialism,Footnote 6 this approach centers on the political need to make their entitlement to national rights in a postcolonial binational constellation contingent on bottom-up efforts they should undertake in the making of a shared, decolonized future.
Finally, this praxis-oriented framework is particularly relevant for the Palestinian Community of Israel (PCI), a neglected group in Israel–Palestine. Denied their organic peoplehood since 1948, the PCI has been described as a “trapped minority” (see Rabinowitz Reference Rabinowitz2001) living under forms of “inclusive exclusion” (see Jamal Reference Jamal2022). They are structurally constrained by a parliamentary system that forecloses coalition participation and continually forces the reassertion of their collective status as an Indigenous homeland minority (Jamal Reference Jamal2011; Reference Jamal2020). Their unique political struggles therefore align closely with a bottom-up reconciliation approach.
If my arguments hold, a praxis-oriented framework for Israel–Palestine becomes more tangible. This contribution could advance academic discussions of conflict resolution and reconciliation (see Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004), decolonization and critical scholarship on settler colonialism (see Chomsky and Pappé Reference Chomsky, Pappé and Barat2015), and bi-nationalism and integrative solutions (see Bashir Reference Bashir2016); inspire social movement activism and collective action within the PCI; inform the positions and actions of international stakeholders, including the UN, EU, and the international community; and potentially enrich broader debates on political theory and praxis, including on social transformation and critical political theory.Footnote 7
I begin with a brief discussion of RDB-N, situating each component in historical context and outlining respective impasses. Next, I elucidate the top-down postconflict conception of reconciliation, showing why it is the core impasse. Then, I defend the theoretical plausibility of a bottom-up conception. Following this, I argue for the normative desirability of the latter by demonstrating how it enables a theoretical rearticulation between RDB-N that addresses their respective impasses. In doing so, I contend that this rearticulation can be considered a theoretical synthesis for the new political framework discussion. Finally, drawing on a praxis perspective, I conclude by showing this framework’s proximity to the PCI.
Reframing the Analytical Terrain
Beyond the Peace Process: The Consolidation of a New Political Grammar
A new political “grammar” (Bashir Reference Bashir2011; Reference Bashir2016) or “lexicon” (Chomsky and Pappé Reference Chomsky, Pappé and Barat2015; Pappé Reference Pappé2013; Pappé and Mansour Reference Pappé and Mansour2022) for understanding Israel–Palestine has been developing. It takes root in the “New Historian Movement” of the late 1980s—particularly its analysis of ethnic cleansing during the Nakba—and in Palestinian and international political responses to changing post-1967 realities, especially settler-colonial expansionism and the apparent end point of an apartheid state.
This “grammar” has been enriched by critical and normative scholarship in history (Pappé Reference Pappé2006), sociology (Sabbagh-Khoury Reference Sabbagh-Khoury2022), political science (Bashir Reference Bashir2016), Indigenous studies, settler-colonial studies (Veracini Reference Veracini2007; Wolfe Reference Wolfe2006), conflict resolution (Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011; Reference Rouhana2018), and Palestine studies.Footnote 8 Its growing resonance (see Sabbagh-Khoury Reference Sabbagh-Khoury2022) reflects both its capacity to challenge an older paradigm (Newman Reference Newman and Matthews2011; O’Leary Reference O’Leary2016; Stein Reference Stein2004), which is implicated in the impasse of military occupation, settlement expansion, and recurrent violence in Gaza (see Tilley Reference Tilley2012) and the increasing Palestinian uptakeFootnote 9 and circulation of settler-colonial language as a framework for critiquing Israeli domination (see Rouhana and Sabbagh-Khoury Reference Rouhana and Sabbagh-Khoury2015). It is also driven by the failure of the “peace process” to produce the Palestinian state (Butler Reference Butler2012; Judt Reference Judt2003; Khalidi Reference Khalidi2013; O’Leary Reference O’Leary2016; Tilley Reference Tilley2005) that many Palestinians understood as the outcome of the historical compromise of partition. Differently put, a paradigm shift (Rouhana Reference Rouhana2018), expressed through calls for a new political framework (Farsakh Reference Farsakh2021), is becoming increasingly visible and audible (see Sabbagh-Khoury Reference Sabbagh-Khoury2022).
Reconciliation, Decolonization of Relationships, and Egalitarian Bi-nationalism (RNB-N)
This paradigm shift is informed by settler colonialism, the centrality of historical injustices (embodied by the Nakba), and the de facto binational reality of segregation produced by the inseparable sociodemographic intertwinement of both groups across the land. It accordingly entails core prescriptive concepts, most notably reconciliation (Bashir Reference Bashir2012; Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004; Reference Rouhana, Bashir and Kymlicka2008; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011; Reference Rouhana2018), decolonization (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019; Busbridge Reference Busbridge2018; Todorova Reference Todorova2015; Reference Todorova2021), and egalitarian bi-nationalism (Bashir Reference Bashir2016; Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019; Young Reference Young2005).
RDB-N emerges from alternative thinking that challenges the mainstream framing of Israel–Palestine as a national struggle between two symmetrical parties with equal claims to the land. This alternative thinking—critical of both exclusionary ethnonationalism and territorial partition—solidified in the 1980s after the New Historians challenged Israel’s foundational myths and foregrounded the ethnic cleansing thesis (Pappé Reference Pappé2006). The rejuvenation of the settler-colonial paradigm then revitalized old discussions on bi-nationalism (Busbridge Reference Busbridge2018, 11–14; Todorova Reference Todorova2015, 1376), particularly by emphasizing the need to revisit its colonial underpinnings and assess its potential for organizing a postcolonial Israel–Palestine in a normatively desirable fashion (see Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019). It also introduced reconciliation to Israel–Palestine scholarship as an alternative to failed and unjust conflict-settlement approaches (see Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004).
The conception of reconciliation theorized vis-à-vis Israel–Palestine emerged via critical engagements with conflict resolution, social psychology, international relations (Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004; Reference Rouhana, Bashir and Kymlicka2008; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011; Reference Rouhana2018), and democratic theory (Bashir Reference Bashir2012; Reference Bashir2016). It foregrounds power asymmetry, criticizes false symmetry in both analysis and practice, and places historical responsibility and justice at the center of reconciliation (Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004, 42–50; Reference Rouhana, Bashir and Kymlicka2008, 75–80, 87–93; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011, 296–98; Reference Rouhana2018, 651–53, 657–59). Reconciliation is therefore increasingly conceived as the only viable option (Bashir Reference Bashir2012; Reference Bashir2016, 573–78; Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004; Reference Rouhana, Bashir and Kymlicka2008; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011; Reference Rouhana2018) because of the continuing colonization of the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territory) and the increasingly accepted characterization of Israel as an apartheid state controlling historic Palestine.
The settler-colonial paradigm, central to this discussion, is, first and foremost, an interpretive paradigm that examines settler-colonial movements, which are transitional pan-European phenomena par excellence (Veracini Reference Veracini2010). However, settler colonialism should not be reduced solely to a question of origins. Doing so might obscure the primary structural characteristic of settler society: its relationship to conquered land (Wolfe Reference Wolfe1994, 93–96). Indeed, the moment of settler-colonial invasion establishes an “historically continuous structure predicated on displacing indigens from (or replacing them on) the land” (Wolfe Reference Wolfe2006, 4). Settler-colonial movements are thus driven by a “logic of elimination” that can include not only overt violence and expulsion but also strategies of spatial removal, assimilation, and the dismantling of collective native life into governable social forms (388), with the primary motive to obtain territorial control (387). This logic—as distinct from classic colonialism—is “an organizing principle of settler-colonial society rather than a one-off (and superseded) occurrence” (388).
In the Zionist case, this historically continuous structure (Pappé Reference Pappé2013; Reference Pappé2015; Veracini Reference Veracini2010; Wolfe Reference Wolfe2006, 390) can be schematically traced through four stages: first, the explicit intent of invasion expressed at the founding of the Zionist movement in Basel in 1897; second, the consolidation of the settler-colonial movement into a state in 1948, entailing the Nakba; third, post-state consolidation between 1948 and 1966 through the progressive replacement of Indigenous labor with exogenous “others”; and fourth, post-1967 expansionism, marked by continued land control in the OPT. This final phase is still ongoing, potentially until either the native population is reduced to political insignificance (through further settler-colonial consolidation) or some form of decolonization interrupts this trajectory.
Decolonization embodies the aspiration for self-rule and a critique of colonialism as the “systematic denial of freedom” (Kohn and McBride Reference Kohn and McBride2011, 6). It is intertwined with self-determination, justice, equality, freedom, and solidarity against colonialism and imperialism (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 3). Yet decolonization remains a broad, contested, and contextual concept (Jansen and Osterhammel Reference Jansen and Osterhammel2017, cited in Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 3). A nuanced understanding therefore requires engaging the settler-colonial paradigm while attending to the specificities of each case. In Israel–Palestine, this raises a crucial question: What concrete vision of decolonization does this paradigm offer?
Beyond the dichotomy between settler removal (e.g., post-1962 Algeria and late 1970s to early 1980s Rhodesia/Zimbabwe) and the near-total elimination of the native population (for example, in the United States, Australia, and Canada), some contexts reflect ongoing and unresolved struggles over decolonization as political transformation. These include post-apartheid settings and cases in which settler populations have been partially absorbed into Indigenous communities through long-term social and political reconfiguration (Todorova Reference Todorova2015, 1372). Decolonization in Israel–Palestine therefore cannot be reduced to settler removal (1372). Veracini’s (Reference Veracini2007) “decolonization of relationships” is instructive here, not as an alternative to material or territorial transformation but as a way of conceptualizing decolonization in which settler-colonial domination is reproduced as a generalized social and political structure. In this sense, decolonization proceeds through Indigenous reconciliation processes that seek to unsettle and reconfigure the social, political, and normative relations sustaining settler dominance (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 5). It thereby creates the conditions under which more substantive forms of decolonization may become politically intelligible and actionable, without presuming a specific institutional or territorial form in advance. This resonates with decolonial approaches that emphasize the persistence of coloniality beyond formal political arrangements, including at the level of knowledge production, collective memory, and everyday social relations (Tlostanova Reference Tlostanova and Albrecht2002; Reference Tlostanova2011; Reference Tlostanova2015). Such perspectives complement material decolonization by highlighting relational and epistemic transformations that often precede or accompany it, particularly in contexts where settler and Indigenous populations remain demographically entangled.
The distinctiveness of the Zionist settler-colonial project primarily lies in its ethnonationalist religious dimension (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 9–11; Busbridge Reference Busbridge2018, 2–3; Rouhana Reference Rouhana2018, 650; Todorova Reference Todorova2015, 1379–82). If decolonization fails to address ethnonational attachments, it risks becoming an oppositional discourse, rather than a transformative political prescription (Busbridge Reference Busbridge2018, 2). This is why the discussion quickly turns to postcolonial political arrangements, especially the debate between bi-national and “liberal one-staters.” The central point of divergence is how ethnonational group attachments, specifically the history of deep intergroup antagonism, should be addressed.
Critics of bi-nationalism argue that its communitarian underpinnings risk reinforcing divisions between collective identities (Hermann Reference Hermann2005, 399; Tilley Reference Tilley2005, 14); others question its decolonial potential by suggesting that recognizing the settler society as a national collective with equal collective rights may consolidate settler-colonial relations (Abunimah Reference Abunimah2012; Barghouti Reference Barghouti, Loewenstein and Moor2012, 73). In response, Bashir and Busbridge (Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 1) expand bi-nationalism beyond conventional institutional models through “prescriptive egalitarian bi-nationalism,” presenting it as a transformative vision for Arab–Jewish relations.
Prescriptive de jure bi-nationalism differs fundamentally from state-centered bi-nationalism. Unlike institutional (consociational) bi-nationalism, which may reinforce a false symmetry or legitimize remnants of Zionist settler-colonial nationalism, it can address the concern that rigid ethnonational identities might fuel civil conflict. By transcending the settler/native binary, it fosters an imaginative geography in which Palestinian and Jewish historical narratives—such as the Nakba and the Holocaust—can coexist within a shared space of remembrance and recognition (Bashir and Goldberg Reference Bashir and Goldberg2019). It not only facilitates a reinterpretation of the past to extract constructive elements for a postcolonial polity but also offers Israeli Jews a path to legitimacy through regional integration, after they relinquish their colonial privileges (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 14–15).
This does not attain the ideal of social relations associated with the precolonial coexistence of Jews, Christians, and Muslims as part of the movement of history on the path of modernism in the post-Ottoman era—what Makdisi (Reference Makdisi2019) calls the “ecumenical frame.”
Yet, thinking a praxis through a postnational ideal appears difficult under current conditions. Egalitarian bi-nationalism may therefore be understood as a normative prescription that seeks to alleviate intergroup antagonism and eventually unsettle context-produced nationalist impulses (which I describe as “ethnonational attachments”). Perhaps, then, different forms of social existence inspired by or even premised on the “ecumenical frame” will become reasonable.
One key criticism of liberal one-state advocates focuses on their treatment of ethnonational attachments. Although acknowledging their significance in principle, such approaches often disregard their political relevance (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 9–14). If recognizing collective identities carries risks, as critics of bi-nationalism argue, then dismissing them in a postcolonial political arrangement ultimately leaves the issue unresolved. Assuming that settler evacuation is both morally undesirable and realistically impractical, a liberal one-state model based on “one person, one vote” would still need to explain how it would regulate the conflict’s implications for both groups and manage long-standing ethnonational attachments, along with their impact on social relations during or after decolonization.
The first elections in a “state of all its citizens” would raise further questions: How would a majority government guarantee fair representation of both ex-national groups during the period of transitional justice? And how would colonial asymmetries be redressed if the frontiers between settler and native were simply erased, rather than decolonized? The responses of egalitarian prescriptive bi-nationalism advocates are both convincing and promising.
Prescriptive egalitarian bi-nationalism does not merely acknowledge ethnonational attachments as sociopolitical realities: instead, it treats them as a core issue requiring transformation. Unlike civic-based advocates (see Abu-Odeh Reference Abu-Odeh2001; Todorova Reference Todorova2015), bi-nationalists align collective rights to self-determination with proactive institutional and political efforts, rather than relying solely on “non-harm principles” (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 13) that overlook the role of positive engagements in transforming Arab–Jewish relations. This fosters a form of postcolonial parity distinct from superficial conflict resolution “balance” (see Rouhana Reference Rouhana2018), giving rise to demands for Israeli Jews to relinquish settler-colonial dominance, abandon exclusive sovereignty claims over historic Palestine, and recognize Palestinians as an equally entitled political constituency (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 13).
Yet institutional “solutions” are insufficient. Decolonization requires a temporal imaginary that reckons with colonial injustice, both to address past wrongs and to articulate a collective future grounded in anticolonial principles (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 14–15). Reconciliation is central here because, by putting Arab–Jewish relationships at the core of the postcolonial polity, bi-nationalism offers “a vision of an egalitarian future ‘broken’ away from a colonial past.” It also has a backward-looking dimension that more directly engages historical injustice (14–15).
Indeed, the positive engagements that egalitarian prescriptive bi-nationalism seeks to foster between both groups—by acknowledging collective identities and transforming antagonistic relations into ones built on mutual respect and shared destinies—appear to pave the way for reconciliation. As a prescriptive concept, reconciliation includes both a process of political and social transformation (see Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011) and an outcome of genuine, just, and enduring peace grounded in redressing historical oppression, reestablishing symmetry (Bashir Reference Bashir2012), and fostering mutual recognition (Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004; Reference Rouhana, Bashir and Kymlicka2008; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011; Reference Rouhana2018). It therefore exceeds the basic requirements of peacemaking discourse and functions as a force for political and social change based on mutual legitimacy, acknowledged asymmetries, and resolved past injustices (Verdeja Reference Verdeja2009, 33–52).
Bashir and Busbridge engage with Israel–Palestine to argue that postcolonial arrangements that bracket or reject ethnonational identities risk undermining the prospects of reconciliation (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 14). Although this might lead to an inference that reconciliation is preconditioned on a postcolonial bi-national arrangement, I reject this. The problem is not that reconciliation should not be grounded in an egalitarian binational ethos, but that it becomes dependent on a postcolonial polity. Although reconciliation as an outcome can only materialize within a postcolonial constellation, restricting reconciliation as a process to this conditionality creates an impasse for reconciliation itself and the theoretical integration of RDB-N.
From Impasse to Praxis
The Impasse
Following Bashir and Kymlicka’s (Reference Bashir, Kymlicka, Bashir and Kymlicka2008) suggestion that the politics of reconciliation can be analyzed at three levels—as a set of tools or techniques, goals or purposes, and moral and political theories—I primarily engage reconciliation at the third level. My focus is not to catalog reconciliation tools nor adjudicate among reconciliatory goals but to clarify the conceptual and temporal assumptions embedded in theories of reconciliation in settler-colonial contexts. Against a dominant top-down approach that treats reconciliation as an outcome contingent on a postconflict settlement, I propose an alternative in which reconciliation is also a process whose sequencing and locus of agency are decisive for the possibility of a postcolonial arrangement.
A top-down conception of reconciliation dominates theorization on asymmetric reconciliation. It is influenced by international relations scholarship, which frames reconciliation through state-centered models driven by external pressure (see Barghouti Reference Barghouti2011; Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004), such as in the case of South African apartheid, and especially the role of international sanctions and the formal, public, and comprehensive nature of reconciliation itself. This denotes a state-driven process implemented through public institutions and policies, which Rouhana (Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011, 299) characterizes as follows: reconciliation “involves multifaceted courses of action that are designed to create a new relationship based on restoring dignity, equality, and human rights, eliminating the conditions that made it possible for societies to harm one another, and establishing genuinely democratic institutions that ensure the opportunity for all to participate on equal bases.”
The reconciliation process has four parts: a moral framework, such as transitional justice; a political component, such as state design; a social-psychological component (“cognitive, emotional and behavioral changes that support the transformation”); and a legitimation component consisting of public processes that link elites to the broader public (Rouhana Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011, 299). Each part reinforces a holistic conception of reconciliation that is, in direct opposition to apolitical “P2P” (People-to-People) framings, “politically driven.” In working toward structural and systemic transformation of the state, including underpinning power relations, this process will “extend far beyond just the political level and reach deeply into the social, legal, moral and collective psychological levels” (299).
Rouhana (Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004, 40) argues that this top-down conception of reconciliation should be driven by a negotiation process that arguably resembles the “Oslo process,” in which the inclusion of justice and a new moral framework is enforced by international pressure, mediation, or both. This reconciliation process begins by adopting a new moral framework and remains indifferent to the order in which other components of reconciliation are implemented. It depends on a “postconflict situation,” because negotiations would arguably be initiated following international efforts for transitional justice (much like in apartheid South Africa) designed to engineer or impose this new conflict-resolution framework (Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004, 42–46; see Rouhana Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011, 310; 2018, 655–59) or even a bi-national postconflict constellation (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 1–3).
I argue that the reconciliation process’s dependency on a postconflict situation has serious practical and theoretical limitations. Indeed, one might speculate whether applying negotiation as the point of departure in an asymmetric context amounts to using a symmetrical methodology for a problem that requires an asymmetrical one. In a framework that acknowledges structural asymmetry, initiating elite negotiations becomes difficult because of Palestinian territorial fragmentation and political division, as well as forms of settler-colonial control such as co-optation, exclusion, subjugation, and repression. Although some discussions point to the need for a unified Palestinian representative platform (perhaps by reviving the PLO?Footnote 10), serious obstacles remain in place, most notably the structure of domination governing the entire land. As Rouhana (Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004) warned, continued settlement expansion—particularly in the West Bank—can itself erode the conditions under which negotiation remains plausible, effectively imposing a one-state reality while hollowing out the very parameters by which reconciliation is supposed to be negotiated. This produces a familiar conundrum: some proponents treat a postconflict situation as enabling unification, whereas others see unification as a prerequisite. Tying reconciliation to a postconflict scenario therefore rests on a difficult, and even contradictory, premise.
Moreover, a top-down postconflict conception exposes a deeper theoretical dilemma. If reconciliation must be imposed from above—whether through external intervention or a transformation of the conflict situation—what remains of its counterhegemonic potential if the hegemonic power must first be dehegemonized? This limits reconciliation’s capacity to function as a process of social transformation. It also raises issues of credibility: when reconciliation is effectively imposed on the dominant group after shifts in the balance of power, it may, particularly from the perspective of the victimized group, be perceived as strategic compliance, rather than a genuine transformation.
More fundamentally, conflict categories (before, during, and after conflict) have a questionable relevance to settler-colonial contexts such as Israel–Palestine. As Rouhana notes, framing such situations as “conflicts” risks reproducing a false parity between colonizer and colonized (Rouhana, Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004, 42–50; 2011, 305–11; 2018, 647–53; see also Pappé Reference Pappé2013). This is not merely semantic, because settler-colonial domination begins with invasion and, as a continuous structure, persists until either elimination or genuine decolonization interrupts it. Reducing this structure to episodic “conflict” obscures its underlying logic.
Reconciliation’s reliance on a postconflict framework therefore imposes a postcolonial conditionality that may be coherent as an outcome but is problematic as a process. If reconciliation is meant to mediate the transition from a settler-colonial past to a postcolonial future—as implied by the decolonization of relationships (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 4–5)—then requiring a postconflict condition before its initiation creates a paradox. A top-down approach effectively presupposes the transformation it is meant to initiate.
This tension becomes particularly visible when decolonization is understood not as the mere removal of settlers but as a transformation of relationships. In such cases, reconciliation is not a consequence of decolonization but its catalyst—it is the critical turning point between settler-colonial dominance and postcolonial parity. Restricting reconciliation to a postconflict moment therefore deprives RDB-N of a viable starting point and renders its articulation circular.
Decolonization of relationships is neither linear nor predetermined. Veracini (Reference Veracini2007, 3–8) suggests that advancing decolonization involves promoting Indigenous reconciliation processes, whereas Kohn and McBride (Reference Kohn and McBride2011) add that anticolonial projects require the articulation of alternative political foundations through the decolonization of both minds and institutions (Fanon Reference Fanon2001, cited in Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019, 5). Such processes imply both an initiating moment and a normative horizon (5; Kohn & McBride Reference Kohn and McBride2011, 19). If egalitarian bi-nationalism is desirable as a postcolonial framework attentive to ethnonational attachments, then reconciliation is equally necessary as its starting point. It cannot be preconditioned by the political framework it is meant to help make possible.
This clarification helps resolve the ambiguity surrounding “positive engagements” (Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019) in prescriptive egalitarian bi-nationalism. If such engagements occur without addressing asymmetry, they risk reproducing false parity by inviting participation in an egalitarian ethos that has not yet been established (see Rouhana Reference Rouhana2018, 651–55). If, however, they involve engagement with historical injustice, collective memory, and structural inequality, they are already part of the reconciliation process that makes a postcolonial arrangement possible (Bashir Reference Bashir2012; Reference Bashir2016, 573–78; Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004, 41–50; Reference Rouhana, Bashir and Kymlicka2008; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011, 305–6; Reference Rouhana2018, 657–59).
Researchers integrating reconciliation into prescriptive egalitarian bi-nationalismFootnote 11 therefore risk rendering it dependent on a postcolonial order, when it should be its prerequisite, as with other integrative solutions (see Bashir Reference Bashir2016, 573–78). A top-down postconflict conception leaves bi-nationalism exposed to the critique that it may consolidate, rather than confront, settler-colonial structures. Indeed, precisely because equality must be preceded by redressing the asymmetries produced by colonial domination, the settler community’s right to bi-nationalism should be contingent on the establishment of a postcolonial symmetry, rather than being assumed.
Ultimately, this conceptual rigidity sustains the impasse at the heart of the new political framework. By conditioning reconciliation on a transition from conflict to postconflict, RDB-N remain suspended in an unrealized future. Reconciliation must therefore be “liberated” from this dependency. As the next section shows, this is theoretically plausible once we distinguish more clearly between reconciliation as process and outcome. Conceiving reconciliation as a process enables a praxis grounded in implementation: it begins with what can be pursued under present conditions, emphasizes local agency, and complements—rather than substitutes—broader political transformation.
Toward a Bottom-up Conception: The Theoretical Plausibility
The discussion on RDB-N revolves around a central question: What is its starting point? If decolonization requires both a break from the settler-colonial past and future, along with a postcolonial political constellation, it needs not only a final outcome but also an initiating process. Similarly, if prescriptive egalitarian bi-nationalism and positive engagements in Arab–Jewish relations serve as a relational egalitarian status guiding reconciliation, then reconciliation must be the starting point as a process and, by implication, not contingent on a postconflict or postcolonial situation. Otherwise, RDB-N will be indefinitely deferred to an uncertain future, reducing agency to discursive revendication, reliance on international pressure, or both. This critique underpins my distinction between reconciliation (process vs. outcome) and my argument for a bottom-up conception.
Before developing this claim, it is important to explain why the top-down postconflict model still exerts significant influence on Israel–Palestine scholarship (Bashir Reference Bashir2016; Bashir and Busbridge Reference Bashir and Busbridge2019; Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004; Reference Rouhana, Bashir and Kymlicka2008; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011; Reference Rouhana2018). The reconciliation process is asymmetrical in reverse: under conditions of extensive structural domination, the costs of reconciliation for the dominant group are higher. The more extensive the asymmetries, the more (political, material, and symbolic) advantages must be relinquished, making the perpetrator’s side more resistant to reconciliation (Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004, 38). Responsibility is also harder to accept when injustices can be partially undone. Such injustices include instances of expulsion and ethnic cleansing when power sharing, political transformation, and refugee return threaten the perpetrator’s national identity and security. Moreover, for reconciliation to be imposed on the perpetrator, the moral case must be clear, both to the victim and the international community (39).
As the situation of Israel–Palestine shows, the dominant group develops defense mechanisms—such as Israeli hasbara—to counter moral arguments, while the weaker counterpart must contend with obstacles that include barriers to international recognition. At the same time, recent shifts in global public discourse—particularly in Western contexts—have made the Israeli regime’s settler-colonial character more visible than before, potentially widening the discursive space where bottom-up mobilization might emerge. Yet such shifts are not opportunities in and of themselves. Their political significance remains contingent both on local collective organization under conditions of profound Palestinian fragmentation and structural constraint and on the degree to which dominant power structures permit, absorb, or actively counter such mobilization.
Reconciliation in the Israel–Palestine case has historically faced significant obstacles.Footnote 12 The dominant party denies past injustices and reverses perceptions of power asymmetry, and mainstream analyses often disregard these and other imbalances. The fundamental components of reconciliation—namely, justice, truth, historical responsibility, and political change—are thereby undermined.Footnote 13 Nonetheless, recent shifts in perception—such as international (Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International) and local (B’Tselem) human rights groups recognizing Israeli apartheid—indicate some progress.
When examining historical precedents, we see that reconciliation efforts, as in South Africa and the Afro-American civil rights movement, were driven by bottom-up struggles in which groups, persistently advocating for justice and democracy, forced issues of historical truth and responsibility into the mainstream discourse (Rouhana Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011, 303). However, even while acknowledging the role and contributions of bottom-up movements, Rouhana’s reconciliation model remains top-down.
Liberating reconciliation from its top-down rigidity and postconflict dependency means (re)conceiving it as a locally driven political struggle led by social movements. As a process, it unfolds through political contention that may evolve into joint struggles (see Bashir Reference Bashir2016, 573–78; Todorova Reference Todorova2021), whereas as an outcome it remains a postcolonial achievement. This argument does not reject the top-down model, because international pressure has historically played a significant role in other cases, most notably in apartheid South Africa. Rather, the point is to establish the theoretical plausibility of a bottom-up conception that can initiate reconciliation before and can potentially culminate in a top-down process. Both conceptions should, and invariably do, coexist in practice. Accordingly, the following subsection elaborates a bottom-up conception of reconciliation as a process.
Challenging the assumption on negotiation as the point of departure for asymmetric conceptions of reconciliation (Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004; Reference Rouhana, Bashir and Kymlicka2008; Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011; Reference Rouhana2018), I propose a bottom-up model that does not await a postconflict situation or resolution. Instead, I recognize the added value of some of reconciliation’s components in contributing to the initial materialization of the top-down process of reconciliation and, in turn, to this postconflict situation. My bottom-up conception retains the same core components of reconciliation—ethnocultural justice, historical truth, responsibility, and political restructuring (Rouhana Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011, 76)—but prioritizes their sequential implementation. Instead of treating reconciliation as a process in which the different parts operate simultaneously, it emphasizes the feasibility of initiating specific dimensions under current conditions to build momentum for broader change.
This aligns with Bashir’s (Reference Bashir2012) “politics of reconciliation,” which has underscored the importance of collective memory work, particularly reconciling narratives of exclusion and dispossession (Bashir and Goldberg Reference Bashir and Goldberg2019), as a foundational step to achieving reconciliation as an outcome, the first step of the politics of reconciliation. Although Bashir has emphasized the importance of memory work,Footnote 14 he does not, most likely because of his adherence to a top-down framework, exploit its temporality.Footnote 15 A bottom-up model, however, treats reconciliation as a progressive sequence, beginning with implementable steps such as reshaping collective memory, which lay the groundwork for subsequent phases, such as acknowledging historical injustices. This does not negate the revendication of top-down reconciliation but adds a practical dimension to its pursuit, making it a cumulative (rather than static) process.
Even under conditions of repression and constraint, collective struggle is a constitutive feature of political transformation. Conceiving reconciliation as a bottom-up process situates it within contentious politics and social movements, locating it where the possibility of joint struggles and sociopsychological transformation can develop and emerge. Such an approach, because it stems from local agency rather than external imposition, enhances the sincerity and credibility of reconciliation. It also connects reconciliation with broader scholarly fields, such as collective action studies, reinforcing its emancipatory potential and liberating it from postconflict dependency. Most notably, it creates space for genuine engagement by Israeli Jews. By actively opposing the structures that grant them privilege, they can contribute to a more equitable postcolonial framework, strengthening the legitimacy of a bi-national vision, and grounding their right to bi-nationalism in a political justification. This is distinct from depoliticized psychology-driven reconciliation models that overlook power asymmetries (see Rouhana Reference Rouhana and Bar-Tal2011, 300–3).
Although Rouhana has rightly criticized such models, not all bottom-up processes are inherently apolitical or politically “naïve.” The bottom-up approach I advocate does not treat social–psychological aspects as stand-alone solutions but rather as politically significant steps toward transformation. Unlike superficial P2P reconciliation initiatives, this model integrates reconciliation into political contention, ensuring that local agency and structural change remain central.
Recognizing the distinction between the process and outcome of reconciliation liberates it from its top-down conceptual rigidity and postconflict dependency. Furthermore, my argument that top-down and bottom-up approaches are complementary reinforces the theoretical plausibility of the latter. A top-down approach assumes a postconflict reality, which makes the simultaneous implementation of all reconciliation components feasible. In contrast, a bottom-up approach differentiates among the components of reconciliation and prioritizes those that can be pursued now—such as collective memory work—while laying the groundwork for more structural transformations. This distinction is crucial, because it shifts reconciliation from mere revendication to implementation, blending advocacy with tangible action.
“Future Visions”
To empirically ground this bottom-up conception, I examine the PCI’s “Future Vision” documents, published in 2006–7, as an illustrative reference point. The “Future Vision” documents emerged from a collective initiative involving PCI intellectuals and civil society actors and were supported by PCI political parties. The key organizations were the National CommitteeFootnote 16 (which published the “Future Vision” documents), Mada Al-CarmelFootnote 17 (which published the “Haifa Declaration”), and AdalahFootnote 18 (which published the “Democratic Constitution”). The documents articulated a collective vision for the future of Palestinian citizens of Israel within the state, with the aim of promoting equality, recognition, and structural transformation of Israel’s ethnic foundations (Jamal Reference Jamal2011, 108). Grounded in international law and Indigenous minority rights frameworks, these documents also acknowledged the Jewish majority’s right of self-determination. They were produced for the benefit of multiple audiences: the Israeli state and Jewish majority (signaling a call for recognition and structural transformation) the international community (anchoring demands in global legal and moral norms), and Palestinians themselves (helping the PCI foster internal consensus and develop a unified political vision in response to abandonment by the “peace process,” while pleading for Palestinian national independence in a two-state solution).
Jamal celebrated “Future Vision” as a landmark expression of Palestinian minority nationalism in Israel. He commended it for combining legal, political, and ethical claims in a coherent vision and being a “turning point” that shifted from integrationist or individual rights claims to collective, structural, and national demands (Jamal Reference Jamal2011, 108). He also wrote that it demonstrated a growing internal consensus among Palestinian citizens of Israel on core political issues, challenged the ethnic character of the Israeli state (by proposing a civic reimagining of citizenship and statehood), and contributed to future-oriented thinking about reconciliation, justice, and democratic transformation within the country (122).
These documents speak to themes central to RDB-N—particularly claims of political equality, recognition, and historical redress—and clarify the limits of revendicative and state-facing strategies under conditions of entrenched domination. They give insight into how normative prescriptions, when advanced without initiating an implementation-oriented process, remain confined to revendication.
The Re-articulation: A Theoretical Synthesis for the New Political Framework
Reconciliation in Israel–Palestine—understood as a process of reckoning with past injustices through memory, responsibility, political recognition, and reparations (see Bashir Reference Bashir2012)—should be disentangled from its postconflict conditionality to fulfill its potential. It can be both a process and an outcome, a point that researchers have often failed to recognize. Yet, differentiating reconciliation as a process versus an outcome is required to organize the bottom-up efforts aligned with or directed toward reconciliation as a process based on a logic of implementation.
As mentioned, top-down reconciliation inherently occurs after a conflict, because public policy is unlikely to embrace reconciliation without external pressures that shift the political environment from conflict to nonconflict (see Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Eagly, Baron and Hamilton2004, 38–41); bottom-up reconciliation, in contrast, is more plausible within a framework of political contention and can advance to tackle joint struggles and common dwelling. Whereas the former depends on an external shift, the latter unfolds through a more chaotic and uncertain struggle, seeking gradual social transformation that could, with the support of international efforts, ultimately push reconciliation onto the public agenda. Thus, the theoretical dominance of the top-down postconflict approach is understandable, if not justifiable, because it is practically safer and easier to advocate for international pressure against apartheid than to push for a bottom-up reconciliation process within a settler-colonial reality marked by extreme power asymmetries.
Yet, reconciliation as a bottom-up process does not necessarily conflict with a top-down conception: both seek reconciliation as an outcome. Whether through international pressure or internal struggles, reconciliation as a project must be conceived and advanced to be materialized. A bottom-up perspective could link the calls for reconciliation with its progressive realization as a project, especially because it involves social and political change within society (rather than merely at the state level). Bottom-up reconciliation typically occurs within civil society and the informal public sphere, taking shape through mass mobilization, collective action, and social movements. At this level, a top-down conception contributes little to the progressive realization of reconciliation, because it awaits a change in conflict status before beginning. This delay diverts efforts away from the local society requiring transformation, which is particularly harmful when addressing collective memory issues, such as the Nakba or reconciling antagonistic historical narratives (see Bashir and Farsakh Reference Bashir and Farsakh2021; Bashir and Goldberg Reference Bashir and Goldberg2019). The counterhegemonic potential to transform colonial social relationships largely resides in early-stage reconciliation and, more specifically, in reconciliation’s social-psychological component. Thus, conceiving reconciliation as a social force seeking to achieve reconciliation as an outcome offers a more dynamic and promising approach than the rigid top-down model, which passively awaits an uncertain postconflict future.
Liberating reconciliation from its postconflict dependency also aligns with the reality on the ground, particularly for PCI, as discussed in the next subsection. Conceptualizing reconciliation as a bottom-up social force enables a more coherent theoretical rearticulation between the elements of RDB-N and establishes a process that shifts their order. A bottom-up approach to reconciliation could be both an initiating moment and a breaking point between the colonial past and postcolonial future. In offering a foundation for mutual legitimacy and recognition, it provides an adequate entryway to decolonization that addresses its core impasse by reckoning with the significance of ethnonational attachments at the outset.
Furthermore, this bottom-up framework fosters joint struggles for mutual recognition and could ultimately dismantle the divide between settler and native. When this perspective, which provides a crucial starting point or initiation moment, is absent, the theoretical articulation between the components of RDB-N is ambiguous. If reconciliation is understood as a bottom-up process leading to postcolonial parity within a bi-national framework, then the theoretical integration of RDB-N becomes, from a praxis perspective, a coherent process. This in turn deepens the meaning and significance of each prescription and their interrelationships, thereby advancing discussions on the new political framework.
Nevertheless, reconciliation—by virtue of its accommodationist orientation—cannot by itself provide a sufficient account of historical injustice or attendant structural vulnerabilities. When pursued in isolation, a bottom-up reconciliation process risks becoming politically “thin” and normatively adrift, underscoring the essential role of decolonization in the theoretical rearticulation.
As a redemptive and emancipatory process, decolonization derives its force from confronting settler colonialism as a historically continuous structure, rather than a closed episode. The imperative to undo, rather than merely reconcile, colonial relations provides the decolonial framework and supplies the substantive content that reconciliation must accommodate. By situating past injustices within an ongoing structure of domination, decolonization ensures that reconciliation remains oriented toward meaningful structural transformation, rather than symbolic closure.
This theoretical integration moves in both directions. Decolonization informs reconciliation by defining what must be accommodated, thereby ensuring the process is not ahistorical, apolitical, or both. Conversely, a bottom-up reconciliation process provides an initiating moment for the decolonization of relationships by fostering joint struggles and common dwelling, potentially mitigating settler fears of native retribution in a postcolonial polity. By seeking mutual legitimacy and recognition, it creates a more viable space for addressing ethnonational and religious particularities.
However, although this bottom-up conception addresses the ethnonational attachment impasse of decolonization in its initiation stage, it does not determine the destination of the process. Neither reconciliation nor decolonization explicitly defines the endpoint of this transformation: although they describe what must be undone and how it should be undone, they do not specify what comes after. This is where egalitarian bi-nationalism becomes crucial. Bi-nationalism can, depending on whether it acknowledges and rectifies asymmetries, either perpetuate settler-colonial power structures or serve as an emancipatory project. For egalitarian bi-nationalism to be genuinely transformative, reestablishing parity between the two groups must be achieved—or at least initiated—before formal equality is established by the inauguration of a postconflict state. Parity can be accomplished if bi-nationalism is embedded within the theoretical rearticulation offered here, henceforth serving as its destination or endpoint.
Structuring this rearticulation as a process beginning with bottom-up reconciliation, progressing through the decolonization of relationships, and culminating in egalitarian bi-nationalism gives the framework both analytical coherence and practical direction. Conditioning bi-nationalism on a bottom-up process of decolonial reconciliation helps ensure that a postcolonial parity, free from colonial logic and its residues, is achieved. This political justification for egalitarian bi-nationalism provides a defense against critiques that view it as a continuation of settler colonialism. Requiring Israeli Jews to engage in this process from a position of power attests to the sincerity of their commitment and helps minimize the risk of settler-colonial structures being reproduced in a postcolonial future.
Although this process does not directly counter the argument that Jewish national claims in historic Palestine are inherently settler colonial, it offers a parallel political justification that relativizes the weight of the historical critique. In carving out a path for emancipation shaped by decoloniality, which acknowledges historic truth without submitting to its deterministic implications, it effectively balances the normative implications of history with possibilities for a just and inclusive postcolonial future.
A Praxis Perspective
In this article, praxis refers to the point where a normative framework becomes sufficiently grounded to orient action under existing conditions. It neither denotes the immediate realization of political outcomes nor the implementation of institutional designs, but rather the articulation of a transformative path that links social relations, collective agency, and political imagination. Praxis thus requires identifying relevant agents, locating feasible sites of intervention, and prioritizing forms of engagement that can be pursued under existing conditions.
Within the consolidated one-state reality in Israel–Palestine, the PCI—often referred to as ‘48 Palestinians—has a structurally liminal yet politically consequential position (Farsakh Reference Farsakh2021, 183–87; Jamal Reference Jamal2011; Reference Jamal2020; Reference Jamal2022). As an Indigenous population incorporated into the Israeli polity but excluded from the national collective that anchors state sovereignty, members of the PCI experience a condition of partial and hollowed citizenship shaped by enduring settler-colonial domination (Yiftachel Reference Yiftachel2023). This positionality affords limited access to civic and political arenas while sharply constraining their collective agency. The PCI is neither an external interlocutor nor a sovereign counterpart, but rather an intra-colonial community whose political strategies illuminate both the possibilities and limits of contestation under deep asymmetry. Precisely because its members have lived in a settler-colonial state that has withheld equality since 1948, their experience exposes the limits of both Israeli citizenship and territorial partition as pathways to justice.
The “Future Vision” documents provide the most significant collective articulation of the political future for the PCI (Rouhana Reference Rouhana, Bashir and Kymlicka2008). The product of an unprecedented collaboration between Arab intellectuals, civil society actors, and political elites, these documents sought to redefine Israel as a state of all its citizens and reframe Palestinian citizenship in terms of substantive equality, rather than conditional inclusion. This was a pivotal historical intervention that affirmed Palestinian indigeneity, exposed the essential incompatibility of ethnic domination and democratic equality, and challenged Jewish supremacy as a legitimate organizing principle of political order.Footnote 19 At the same time, “Future Vision” operated within a civic and state-facing political grammar. Although it acknowledged the colonial roots of Zionism and the Israeli state, it did not articulate a decolonial project nor propose decolonization as a political process. This was attributable to both pragmatic constraints and the institutional orientation shaping PCI political engagement.
From a praxis perspective, “Future Vision” is limited: it is revendicative and state-oriented; it articulates a political arrangement without specifying how its normative commitments could be enacted under conditions of entrenched domination; and crucially, it remains tethered to state recognition and constitutional reform as the horizon of transformation. This is both a strategic and sequential limitation. By treating negotiation and institutional redesign as starting points, rather than outcomes dependent on prior social and political transformation, “Future Vision” implicitly reproduces a symmetrical grammar of engagement historically associated with liberal and postconflict paradigms. It does this, facing a consolidated, asymmetrical one-state reality.
This limitation is mirrored in the broader trajectory of PCI civic activism.Footnote 20 The literature attests to the important role of rights-based advocacy, litigation, and international lobbying in exposing the discriminatory character of the Israeli regime (Jamal Reference Jamal2020, 243–56). Yet these professionalized and state-oriented modes of action have often remained socially detached, operating on behalf of Palestinian society, rather than as processes of collective reconstitution generated from within. Under conditions of structural domination, such strategies encounter a ceiling of effectiveness and come to risk reproducing the epistemic centrality of the very institutions they seek to contest.
Recent decolonial interventions do offer a clarifying contrast. In Lordship and Liberation in Palestine–Israel: The Promise of Decolonial Sovereignties, Ayyash (Reference Ayyash2025, 171–98) analyzes how First Intifada decolonial praxis was embodied in popular committees that fused social and political life through layered practices of collective organization. These committees did not appeal to colonial institutions for recognition, nor did they begin with institutional redesign; rather, they sought to undo relations of domination at the level of everyday social life, thereby generating the conditions for political transformation. Although the structural position of the PCI—as an Indigenous minority embedded within the settler-colonial polity—differs fundamentally from that held by OPT Palestinians, Ayyash’s analysis gives instructive insight by highlighting the need for sustained meso-level practices, which have the potential to transform political subjectivity and collective capacity, to be put into effect before institutional change. At the same time, the PCI’s internal position within the settler-colonial body makes such decolonial practices necessary but insufficient on their own, requiring a parallel and strategic use of intra-systemic spaces to generate influence, collectively organize, and exert pressure on both the state and dominant majority. In reflecting on such practices, decolonization researchers have identified a distinction between a decolonial praxis, which challenges coloniality in social and epistemic relations, and the longer-term structural transformation associated with decolonization (Tlostanova Reference Tlostanova and Albrecht2002; Reference Tlostanova2011; Reference Tlostanova2015). In contexts like Israel–Palestine, where full territorial reversal appears unlikely, relational transformation is a crucial dimension of any plausible decolonizing trajectory.
From this perspective, bottom-up reconciliation does not presuppose symmetry, negotiation, nor immediate institutional transformation. Rather, it designates a process of transforming social and political relations forged through colonial domination, with a view to addressing lived realities of domination, exclusion, and dehumanization. This praxis, embedded at the meso-level of PCI communal life, prioritizes collective organization, internal deliberation, and sociopolitical transformation as conditions of possibility for broader change. It does not abandon, but rather defers, an institutional reform that is only regarded as meaningful when the relational foundations of domination are sufficiently unsettled.
It is on this basis that my theoretical (re)articulation of the relationship between reconciliation, decolonization of relationships, and egalitarian bi-nationalism can be characterized and described as a “praxis-oriented intervention.” By grounding these prescriptions in implementable social and political processes, I seek to show how their proposed sequence—beginning with bottom-up reconciliation, progressing through the decolonization of relationships, and culminating in egalitarian bi-nationalism—can be understood not merely as a normative horizon but also as a path. In traversing its multiple turns and twists, we come to see how political transformation may gradually become thinkable and actionable under conditions of entrenched asymmetry.
Conclusion
In examining the main prescriptions advanced by calls for a new political framework for Israel–Palestine, I proposed how reconciliation, decolonization of relationships, and egalitarian bi-nationalism might be theoretically rearticulated from a praxis perspective. In arguing that a bottom-up conception of reconciliation is necessary, I put forward one such perspective that addresses theoretical inconsistencies while unlocking its normative potential.
Specifically, a praxis-oriented rearticulation entails a sequential process that begins with implementation-driven reconciliation, proceeds through the decolonization of relationships as a social and political force, and culminates in an egalitarian bi-national postcolonial arrangement. Read in this way, reconciliation is not a postconflict outcome but rather an initiating process, decolonization of relationships is a transformative trajectory, and egalitarian bi-nationalism is a consolidating horizon. The proximity of this articulation to PCI political struggles suggests the contours of a praxis that, although presently unactualized, is plausible.
These arguments have broader implications for Israel–Palestine scholarship that extend beyond just political transformation. By engaging with them, PCI political actors might locate a more dynamic and unifying political vision that extends beyond revendication alone; international stakeholders committed to justice might rethink their role and contributions; and scholars working on asymmetric domination in other contexts might draw on a praxis-oriented framework that is attentive to agency, sequencing, and constraint.
These implications also bear on worsening political conditions within the Israeli system. Recent developments point to an intensifying institutional crisis, rising out-migration among segments of liberal Jewish Israelis, and hardening discriminatory attitudes toward the PCI (Nili Reference Nili2019; Reference Nili2023; Razin Reference Razin2025; Roznai and Gidron Reference Roznai and Gidron2026). Although these developments may seem to make egalitarian transformation an increasingly remote possibility, they also illuminate the limits of approaches that locate political change primarily in elite bargaining, coalition arithmetic, and constitutional recalibration.
This suggests that the strategic question is not simply one of tactical adjustment within existing institutional constraints, but whether liberal Israeli political actors are willing to confront and renounce the exclusionary character of the existing political order. Such a reorientation would primarily take not the form of tactical coalition building but rather a more fundamental alignment that challenges the underlying structures of asymmetry.
PCI actors may need to continue developing the social and organizational infrastructure of bottom-up praxis, while Israeli liberal/progressive actors willing to confront the exclusionary foundations of the existing order could become potential partners in a joint democratic struggle. In practical terms, this could include public recognition of Palestinian collective claims, support for PCI-led or PCI-inclusive civic and political initiatives, and participation in struggles that challenge structural asymmetry, rather than merely seek short-term institutional management. When formal institutions are structured to contain rather than transform asymmetry, the primary locus of praxis shifts toward social and relational terrains; namely, civil society, grassroots organization, collective memory, and forms of political reconstitution capable of reshaping what later becomes electorally and institutionally possible.
Politics does not unfold on a single temporality. Processes of war, repression, and institutional erosion often generate immediate effects, whereas reputational costs, international pressure, and shifts in collective alignments may accumulate more gradually. Under such conditions, their shrinking civic space may induce the PCI to push their energies beyond exhausted institutional channels, while segments of the Israeli opposition could increasingly be forced to confront the contradictions between their liberal self-understandings and the denial of Palestinian equality. In the face of such reckonings, a joint democratic struggle may become more conceivable, making exit no longer the only imaginable response.
Alongside this, PCI leaders could still pursue defensive strategies aimed at protecting communities, preserving civic space, and mitigating authoritarian escalation, building on tactical alliances previously forged under adverse conditions. But such maneuvers should not be mistaken for the principal engine of change. Under conditions long characterized by exclusion and limited leverage, PCI engagement with state institutions has often generated important revendicative gains while simultaneously encountering a structural ceiling (Jamal Reference Jamal2011; Reference Jamal2020). When this ceiling is lowering, bottom-up praxis actually becomes more relevant.
The article has several limitations, including an empirically constrained analysis of the PCI that conceals the empirical bases on which its prognosis is built. Research should address this limitation while also situating the PCI in the bigger picture of Israeli–Palestinian politics.
Future research should proceed in three directions. First, it should render more explicit the egalitarian normative and moral foundations on which this praxis rests. Second, it should engage critically with democratic innovation to examine how democratic practices might be sustained under conditions of democratic backsliding, particularly at the meso level. Third, it should draw on bottom-up political dynamics in contexts where formal institutions face structural limitations, developing process-oriented approaches capable of advancing transformation under constraint.
In conclusion, I underscore the importance of justice-driven research in critically non-ideal contexts marked by oppression and domination. By proposing a praxis-oriented theoretical rearticulation attentive to both structural constraints and transformative horizons, I highlight the need for scholarship capable of reconciling political possibility with political imagination and informing pathways to more egalitarian political arrangements.
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful to Matteo Gianni, Marco Giugni, and Ilan Pappé, whose sustained feedback, guidance, and intellectual engagement accompanied the development of this article through several stages of my doctoral work. I owe a special intellectual debt to Nadim Rouhana and Bashir Bashir, whose writings have not only shaped this article but also helped make its contribution possible. I also thank the three anonymous reviewers of Perspectives on Politics for their generous, intellectually engaged, and supportive comments and the editorial team for their highly professional handling of the manuscript. Finally, I thank Ben Boulton for his careful editorial assistance, professionalism, and sustained engagement throughout the revision and publication process. Any remaining errors are my own.
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