From Existential Conflict to Coexistence: Israel/Palestine and Beyond

• In Event: Empirical Origins of Political Ideas

Abstract

What makes some intergroup conflicts exceedingly intractable, and what may still resolve them? This book project submits that to attain coexistence we must understand why and how certain conflicts become existential.
An existential conflict is not merely about “us vs. them,” but about believing “it’s either us or them,” that “the enemy is determined to destroy us.” Existential conflict is born out of existential anxiety – about the viability of one’s polity, about the validity of one’s identity, and about our shared humanity – the abyss without, within and between, respectively.
This triple abyss breeds the “radical veto”: the capacity, and the publicly perceived right, of radical factions, who oppose compromise, to veto it, morally and practically.
These propositions are examined theoretically and comparatively, focusing on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, giving a fresh account for why the seemingly obvious solution – two states for two peoples – remains elusive, and how it may yet come about.

Author

• Uriel Abulof, Cornell University