Reasoning without consensus: grassroots experiments in radical inclusion in Israel/Palestine

Abstract

Liberal public reason seeks to provide a neutral platform for political engagement. Yet, its conditions, notably the rules of engagement and the demand for consensus, effectively exclude many populations with non‐liberal subjectivities from public participation. In Israel‐Palestine, the majority of both Jewish and Palestinian populations hold non‐liberal subjectivities, and neither side can claim the position of an unmarked public speaking for a generalized, common public good. Yet, the price of non‐engagement in the context of acute civic crisis and violent, intractable conflict, is exceedingly high. This article considers the attempts of two local initiatives to create alternative methods for the radical inclusion of divergent cosmologies and ontological claims. The Citizens’ Accord Forum uses relatively mainstream communication techne to engage ultra‐Orthodox Jews and Muslims, but the interactions ‘spill over’ beyond the constraints of liberal reason. Siach Shalom upends the rules of communicative ethics of the liberal public sphere, relying on the Hasidic concept of the ‘unity of opposites’, a paradoxical logic that contains contrasts, as well as a vertical model of social change.