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  • Binationalism
  • Ayelet Waldman (bio)

Though i am a writer by trade, I am an attorney by training, one with a near fanatic devotion to the ideals of the United States Constitution, as revised and expanded beyond its slavery-tarnished origins. What I love most about America is its as-yet-unfulfilled promise of egalitarianism and equality, of one person/one vote, of the ability of a multicultural nation to live in fractious harmony. And yet, until recently, I had never allowed myself to question the wisdom of the classically framed two-state solution—Israelis here, Palestinians there, separation begetting peace.

Then, in April of 2016, on a trip to Israel-Palestine as part of a group of writers working on the forthcoming anthology Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation, I met the Hebrew University professor Bashir Bashir. Dr. Bashir views the question of whether the governing system of Israel-Palestine is one of a single state or of two states as all but irrelevant. The important question, rather, is whether the governing system in Palestine-Israel will continue to be one of segregation and zero-sum-games, or whether we can build a future based on the acknowledgement that this land is shared. Dr. Bashir argues that we must strive for "an inclusive, humanistic form of politics that allows us [Palestinians] to accommodate Israeli Jews in a democratic venture of togetherness." This he calls "binationalism."

For some, the idealized version of this binationalism might be a single state, where laws mandate the separation of church and state, protect against discrimination and uphold the rights of both collectives, as well as those of all of the individuals who live there. For other people, the ideal could be reconciled with a two-state formula: one Israeli and Hebrew-speaking, the other Palestinian and Arabic-speaking, but each with sizable and protected minorities, and with meaningful and consistent cooperation between the two states. Yet another version of binationalism might be a confederation, with overlapping systems of government. Common to all of these solutions and the many others expressed in these pages and elsewhere is the ideal of togetherness, of democracy.


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A woman pounds the Qalandiya checkpoint gate with a rock during the International Women's Day march in Qalandiya, West Bank in 2014.

But of course, last spring when I sat in a conference room of the Ambassador Hotel in East Jerusalem, being encouraged by Dr. Bashir and his colleague Dr. Hillel Cohen, also a Hebrew University professor, to envision ever more imaginative possibilities of mutuality, Donald Trump had not yet been elected president of the United States. There were not avowed white supremacists in positions of power in the White House. Togetherness seemed possible, the best—the only—way forward.

In this new, previously unimaginable world, is it too fantastical to dream and aspire toward a politics of togetherness in Palestine-Israel?

Or is that dream all that we have left?

Ayelet Waldman

ayelet waldman is the author of A Really Good Day and the co-editor, along with Michael Chabon, of Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation.

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