In the shadow of the state: Lived pluralism in Ramla

The Israeli state is frequently critiqued for being insufficiently liberal, particularly in its treatment of Palestinians. But scholars have found that liberal tolerance is premised on the denial of difference through its privatization, aestheticization and trivialization, tendencies that are readily apparent in liberal coexistence initiatives targeting Israelis and Palestinians. In the context of the Israeli state, I argue that the liberal/illiberal rejection of difference creates a violent state of exception for Palestinians that is propped up by a liberal/illiberal horseshoe alliance between the Israeli right and left. This article explores persisting traces of other Jewish coexistence practices in Ramla, Israel, in which difference is understood as public rather than private, reinvigorating a wider tradition of non-liberal Jewish approaches to the challenges of living with difference that have been marginalized since the early days of the Israeli state. In Ramla, I highlight a "minor" and form of coexistence that breaks the binary opposition of Jewish supremacy and liberal multiculturalism.