In a lecture at the American University of Beirut on July 1, 1999, Edward Said argued passionately for the reimagining of Israeli and Palestinian history. To illustrate how these conflicting experiences inextricably overlap and intersect, Said drew on the metaphor of musical counterpoint. He urged both Palestinians and Israelis to engage one another contrapuntally, to recognize and embrace the connections and contradictions between their respective histories and claims to the land. Considering the overwhelmingly anti-Israeli sentiments of his audience, it took courage and vision to advance such an argument. Moreover, that Said should have drawn specifically on musical counterpoint to propose an alternative strategy to the polarized hatred in the Middle East—and that he should have done so in an environment where appreciation and knowledge of Western classical music is increasingly rarefied—is remarkable. It testifies to Said's efforts to extend counterpoint as a viable political rhetoric and analytic tool both within academia and beyond.

In the years since this memorable lecture, the possibilities for contrapuntal exchange between Israel and Palestine have further deteriorated, and the idea of a bi-national, one-state solution has all but vanished from the political vocabulary. If Palestinians still occasionally endorse it, most Israelis today dismiss the idea of a bi-national shared state as absolutely unviable. The separation barrier crosses the landscape as a concrete reminder of intractable conflict and the anxieties it has produced on both sides. And yet Said's insistence on attending to the counterpoint of multiple, intersecting narratives in history continues to impact scholarship across the humanities and holds particular relevance for scholars of comparative literature.