Yeah, it's incredibly interesting, fascinating history, the existence of the crusade gives rise to this counter force simultaneously to its emergence, which is interesting in dialectical terms.

I want to kind of shift and move towards the present. We've certainly hinted at contemporary relevance for this discussion and you named the essay itself, the one kingdom solution, which is clearly this sort of illusion or gesture to the concept of a one state solution versus the two state solution.

I'll probably like start this just with a couple thoughts on my own and toss it over to you all to hear your thoughts, you know, we often hear in the US particularly the idea that the two state solution it's almost like the op the only other option other than what we're seeing with conflict and aggression is a two state solution, but in so many ways it sort of accepts the premises of Israeli settler colonialism.

It accepts the displacement of Palestinians from their land, at least huge chunks of it, et cetera, as we can go down the line, why this two state solution is not really a viable option at all.

And what's being put up in its place or a counter idea is this one state solution that no, we don't need two separate states, but rather people of different religions can live in community if everybody has equal human rights, equal civil rights, equal representation, and that would require the annihilation of the contradiction between colonized and colonizer.

Now a lot of the ways, especially in the West and amongst ignorance ignorant people and even like lots of liberals that this conflict between Palestinians and Israelis is set up as if the primary contradiction is religious right as if the primary contradiction is between Muslims and Jews, and that is not the case at all the primary contradiction is between the colonizer and the colonized and the secondary contradictions are sort of downstream effects of that primary contradiction.

I just think is important to keep in mind, especially as you wade through the rhetoric in America around this conflict.

So just I guess I'm throwing out there if you want to talk about why you named it that and your ideas on the one state versus two state solution.

Yeah, I agree completely with you that there's a failure of imagination and thinking that the only possible way to resolve this is the two state solution and of course as many commentators have pointed out that that may never have been the best solution certainly not the one that fulfills commitments to universal human rights, recognizes the principles of the right of return of refugees, and so on.

But it certainly seems impossible now under the current circumstances of renewed colonization in occupied territories that that it's very hard to imagine how with with the current facts on the ground one could really separate these people into two separate nations and two separate states and countries and of course whether that's even desirable what it.

The reason why it's not considered desirable and not you know part of the political, you know, discourse that's acceptable is because we are accepting the presumptions typically when we're talking about it of the need for a an ethnic exclusive Jewish state right.

I mean if you accept that then of course there's no way to imagine anything other than either the current situation or at best to separate states.

But what you were alluding to and what I think we were trying to get to in this article and by calling it the one kingdom solution is saying well you know might there not be the possibility for an a more inclusive arrangement.

That respect soverenties and cultures and religions that are different and but doesn't politicize them right so the question is is really how do you have shared and multiple soverenties so that people do feel that they have control over.

What's important to them but doesn't put one community in a dominant position over others that undermines their equal human rights right and in political rights and so that's what we were trying to imagine and found in this episode.

A way to think through at least through this mirror of the medieval which we would think would be so less advanced and progressive and equitable because we're thinking about religion as exclusivist forms of identity that are irreconcilable and irresolvable and it's partly because people today constantly try and frame it in religious terms as you pointed out Brett that they want to ignore the politics of what happens with the same.

What happens with the settler colonial project what it means to have a colonizer and colonized and to dispossess the people and to continue to rule over them and deny them political and human rights and think that it's our irresolvable because these religious communities could never reconcile and so what we were thinking about was that here you have a case of medieval religious figures who were able to imagine.

And a kind of political solution that respected different religious identities but that was operating on the principle of some kind of parody and shared sovereignty.

So it's not that this was a model for what we should do for today obviously we don't want kings we don't want queens we don't need any of those sort of hierarchical forms but if we're really to see a solution to the situation I like you think that we have to respect start from the position of everybody's human rights.

Then you work and build for what else you can do to accommodate those but you cannot have one community enjoying full political citizenship and rights and another being you know dispossessed and no reparations no you know a resolution for the historic claims that they have that have been denied through settler colonial dispossession.

So the perspective that I'm coming to this from is one of of course my ultimate goal is a classless stateless society understanding you know I'm not a utopian I know that we're nowhere near that right now but I based on that being my end goal you know at some point in the distant future.

I have a problem with the idea of forcibly constructing multiple ethno states rather than a multi confessional state based on human rights as you were mentioning odd none so I'm just chipping in with my two cents that you know I agree with everything that's being said here but as somebody who obviously is far more knowledgeable in the situation and the region more broadly than I am how would a

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