« Treaty is not a contract: Morgan Brigg, Deirdre Howard-Wagner, Natasha McCormack, Sarah Maddison, Kaely Woods, ‘Entangled political institutions and forms: From corporatisation to treaty’, Australian Journal of Public Administration, 2026

Revolutionary Reconciliation (nothing the current settlers would dread more): Basel Mansour, ‘Reconciliation, Decolonization of Relationships, and Egalitarian Bi-nationalism: A Praxis for the IsraeliPalestinian Impasse?’ Perspectives on Politics, 2026

14Aug26

Abstract: In this article, I interrogate the theoretical architecture that underpins three increasingly influential normative prescriptions for a just political configuration in Israel–Palestine: reconciliation, decolonization of relationships, and egalitarian bi-nationalism (RDB-N). Although recent scholarship has attempted to integrate them into a shared framework, they remain insufficiently articulated, delaying the emergence of a transformative praxis. Here, I argue that the core impasse lies in the dominant “topdown” conception of reconciliation, which, by presuming that a postconflict political order is a prerequisite for implementation, produces a dependency that obstructs the normative potential of RDB-N as a coherent framework for structural transformation. In response, I advance a “bottom-up” conception of reconciliation that is both theoretically plausible and normatively desirable. This reimagines reconciliation as an implementation-driven and grassroots dynamic capable of initiating decolonial transformation and prefiguring an egalitarian binationalfuture,ratherthanapostconflictprocess led by thestate and its institutions. In proposing this theoretical rearticulation, I set the groundwork for a new praxis of RDB-N grounded in localized political agency. The analysis culminates in the Palestinian Community of Israel (PCI), whose liminal position and situated political condition potentially make it a particularly fertile site for developing such a praxis. Although largely theoretical, this contribution has practical implications for conflict resolution, settler-colonial critique, and political transformation in asymmetric contexts. It also opens avenues for future empirical and normative research into both justice in non-ideal conditions and collective action.


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