Voices of Reason

Inspiring and hopeful discussion of how we can live together in a world that is both deeply divided and undeniably shared.

In a region divided by violence, walls, fences, and checkpoints, Voices of Reason analyzes critically cross-boundary initiatives that seek to affirm their own reason in the land between the river and the sea. Based on fieldwork with solidarity and human rights activists in southern Israel and its Israeli–Palestinian borderlands, conducted over the span of two decades, author Alexander Koensler traverses competing moral and political orders. While violence and war and dichotomic interpretive lenses dominate the headlines, relatively little is known about everyday life across borders or peace activism in Israeli society. Precisely for this reason it is equally important to understand more complex dynamics, those aspects that remain often overshadowed but bear a potential for change. With his call to disentangle the separatist imagination, Koensler engages the notion of polyphony to offer novel ways to move beyond zero-sum assumptions in conflicts and hardening community boundaries everywhere, giving the reader an uplifting sense of how we can live together in a world that is both deeply divided and yet undeniably shared.