Speaking Cantonese: The Pasts and Futures of the Federalist Idea in Israel/Palestine

Since 2012, proposals for cantonization, federalism, and confederalism have gained renewed attention as potential frameworks for addressing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The resurgence of federal ideas in contemporary Israeli political discourse warrants a closer examination of their historical trajectories in Palestine, especially in the context of British imperial federalism. The article goes back a century, to the ideas of Jewish Zionist thinker Itamar Ben-Avi, who envisaged the cantonization of the mandate territory of Palestine. Through a detailed analysis of his ideas, alongside proposels from British political thinkers and civil servants, the article situates proposals for the cantonization and federation of Israel/Palestine in the historical context of the foundation of the Irish Free State (1922) as part of the British Empire. It offers a comparative framework to understand continuities and discontinuities in the century-long history of visions of federation and cantonization in Palestine.