Opposed or Intertwined? Religious and Secular Conceptions of National Identity in Israel and the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Abstract

The State of Israel seems to be caught in a protracted conflict – not only with the Palestinians, but also between secular and religious variants of national identity. Moreover, both conflicts intersect: While the secular population is held to be the liberal, peaceful part of Israeli society which is ready for a compromise with the Palestinians, the religious nationalists are identified with hawkish policies and the settlement project in the occupied Palestinian territories. This common perception reflects the secularist assumption that religion and politics can be analytically distinguished and should be factually separated for the sake of democracy, pluralism and peace. Yet such an approach neglects the dense interrelations and overlaps between religious and secular nationalism throughout the history of the Jewish state. A different analytical perspective which treats these seemingly opposing conceptions of national identity as closely intertwined reveals how they have concurred in promoting and legitimizing the overriding raison d’état of the Jewish state as well as the occupation and settlement of the Palestinian territories.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Samantha May, Erin K. Wilson, Faiz Sheikh, Frode Løvlie, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Notes on contributor

Claudia Baumgart-Ochse is a senior researcher and member of the executive board at Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF). Her research focuses on the Middle East conflict and the role of religion in International Relations.

Notes

¹For an analysis of Palestinian religious appropriations of the territory, compare May in this special issue.

²Elizabeth Shakman Hurd, The Politics of Secularism in International Relations (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008), pp. 12–13.

³Erin K. Wilson, After Secularism. Rethinking Religion in Global Politics (Houndmills, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), p. 13.

⁴Ibid., p. 29.

⁵Rogers Brubaker, ‘Religion and Nationalism: Four Approaches’, Nations and Nationalism, 18:1 (2012), pp. 2–20.

⁶Ibid., p. 4.

⁷Ibid., p. 12.

⁸Ibid.

⁹Mark Juergensmeyer, The New Cold War? Religious Nationalism Confronts the Secular State (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1993).

¹⁰Ibid., p. 33.

¹¹See also Catarina Kinnvall, ‘Globalization and Religious Nationalism: Self, Identity, and the Search for Ontological Security’, Political Psychology, 25:5 (2004), pp. 741–767.

¹²Craig Calhoun, Mark Juergensmeyer and Jonathan VanAntwerpen, ‘Introduction’ in C. Calhoun, M. Juergensmeyer and J. VanAntwerpen (eds) Rethinking Secularism (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), p. 5.

¹³Wilson, op. cit.

¹⁴William T. Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence: Secular Ideology and the Roots of Modern Conflict (Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press, 2009). See also the introduction to this special issue.

¹⁵Brubaker, op. cit.

¹⁶Compare for such an approach Anthony D. Smith, ‘The “Sacred” Dimension of Nationalism’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, 29:3 (2000), pp. 791–814.

¹⁷Brubaker, op. cit., p. 9.

¹⁸Ibid., p. 16.

¹⁹Ibid.

²⁰Ibid.

²¹Ibid.

²²Ibid., p. 17.

²³Dan Horowitz and Moshe Lissak, Trouble in Utopia – The Overburdened Polity of Israel (Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1989); Gabriel Sheffer, ‘Political Change and Party System Transformation’ in Reuven Y. Hazan and Moshe Maor (eds) Parties, Elections, and Cleavages. Israel in Comparative and Theoretical Perspective (London: Frank Cass, 2000), pp. 148–171; Avner Yaniv, National Security and Democracy in Israel (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 1993).

²⁴Baruch Kimmerling, ‘Politicide: Ariel Sharon and the Palestinians’, Current History, 104:678 (2005), pp. 25–29; Oren Yiftachel, Ethnocracy (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006).

²⁵Most prominently featured in the Fundamentalism Project of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. For articles on Israel in this major, five-volume publication, see for example Gideon Aran, ‘Jewish Zionist Fundamentalism: The Bloc of the Faithful in Israel (Gush Emunim)’ in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (eds) Fundamentalism Observed (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1991), pp. 265–344; and Eliezer Don Yehiya, ‘The Book and the Sword: The Nationalist Yeshivot and Political Radicalism in Israel’ in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (eds) Accounting for Fundamentalisms: The Dynamic Character of Movements (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1994), pp. 264–302.

²⁶Baruch Kimmerling, ‘Religion, Nationalism, and Democracy in Israel’, Constellations, 6:3 (1999), pp. 339–363; Yossi Yonah, ‘Fifty Years Later: The Scope and Limits of Liberal Democracy in Israel’, Constellations, 6:3 (1999), pp. 411–428.

²⁷Joyce Dalsheim, ‘Ant/agonizing Settlers in the Colonial Present of Israel/Palestine’, Social Analysis, 49:2 (2005), pp. 122–143, p. 124.

²⁸Joyce Dalsheim and Assaf Harel, ‘Representing Settlers’, Review of Middle East Studies, 43:2 (2009), pp. 219–238.

²⁹Ian S. Lustick, For the Land and the Lord: Jewish Fundamentalism in Israel (New York: Council on Foreign Relations, 1988).

³⁰Emanuel Sivan, ‘The Enclave Culture’ in Martin E. Marty and R. Scott Appleby (eds) Fundamentalisms Comprehended: The Fundamentalism Project, vol. 5 (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1995), pp. 11–68.

³¹Idith Zertal and Akiva Eldar, Lords of the Land – The War Over Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967–2007 (New York: Nation Books, 2007).

³²Dalsheim and Harel, op. cit., p. 232.

³³Shmuel Sandler, The State of Israel, the Land of Israel. The Statist and Ethnonational Dimensions of Foreign Policy (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993).

³⁴David Newman, ‘From Hitnachalut to Hitnatkut. The Impact of Gush Emunim and the Settlement Movement on Israeli Politics and Society’, Israel Studies, 10:3 (2005), pp. 192–224.

³⁵Oded Haklai, ‘Religious-Nationalist Mobilization and State Penetration – Lessons from Jewish Settlers’ Activism in Israel and the West Bank’, Comparative Political Studies, 40:6 (2007), pp. 713–739.

³⁶Ibid., p. 715.

³⁷Zertal and Eldar, op. cit.

³⁸Ibid., p. x.

³⁹Ibid., p. xi.

⁴⁰Yehezkel Lein and Eyal Weizman, ‘Land Grab. Israel's Settlement Policy in the West Bank’, B'Tselem, Jerusalem, 2002, https://www.btselem.org/download/200205_land_grab_eng.pdf.

⁴¹Talya Sason, ‘Summary of the Opinion Concerning Unauthorized Outposts’, Jerusalem, 2005, http://www.mfa.gov.il/mfa/aboutisrael/state/law/pages/summary%20of%20opinion%20concerning%20unauthorized%20outposts%20-%20talya%20sason%20adv.aspx.

⁴²Ibid., p. 26.

⁴³Uri Ben-Eliezer, ‘Is a Military Coup Possible in Israel? Israel and French-Algeria in Comparative Historical-Sociological Perspective’, Theory and Society, 27:3 (1998), pp. 311–349.

⁴⁴See also Don-Yehiya, op. cit.

⁴⁵Yagil Levy, ‘The Israeli Military: Imprisoned by the Religious Community’, Middle East Policy, 18:2 (2011), pp. 67–83, p. 69.

⁴⁶Ben-Eliezer, op. cit.

⁴⁷Levy, op. cit.

⁴⁸Sandler, op. cit., p. 27.

⁴⁹A term coined by Max Nordau, an early Zionist.

⁵⁰Arthur Hertzberg, The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader (Philadelphia, PA: The Jewish Publication Society, 1997).

⁵¹Kenneth D. Wald, ‘The Religious Dimension of Israeli Political Life’ in Ted Gerard Jelen and Clyde Wilcox (eds) Religion and Politics in Comparative Perspective: The One, the Few and the Many (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 99–122. See also for this strand of thought Aviezer Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religious Radicalism (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996).

⁵²Moshe Zuckermann, ‘State and Religion: An Aporetic Relationship in Zionism’ in Christoph Miething (ed.) Politik und Religion im Judentum (Tübingen, Germany: Niemeyer, 1999), pp. 199–208, p. 202.

⁵³Charles S. Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel – Traditional Judaism and Political Culture in the Jewish State (Berkeley CA: University of California Press, 1983), pp. 36–40; cf. Uri Ram, ‘Why Secularism Fails? Secular Nationalism and Religious Revivalism in Israel’, International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society, 21:1–4 (2008), pp. 57–84, pp. 62–64.

⁵⁴David Ohana, Political Theologies in the Holy Land. Israeli Messianism and its Critics (New York: Routledge 2010), p. 1.

⁵⁵Ibid., p. 4.

⁵⁶Ibid., p. 5.

⁵⁷As well as many other intellectuals, as Ohana's detailed analysis shows. Ibid.

⁵⁸Ibid., p. 9.

⁵⁹Asher Cohen and Bernard Susser, Israel and the Politics of Jewish Identity (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000).

⁶⁰Hazan, op. cit.

⁶¹Mamlachtiyut is Mapai's state-centric ideology, a term which Dowty has translated as ‘civic-mindedness’ or ‘sense of public responsibility’. It aimed to concentrate all the energy available in the statebuilding process. Alan Dowty, The Jewish State. A Century Later (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998), p. 62.

⁶²Wald, op. cit., p. 107.

⁶³Shmuel N. Eisenstadt, Die Transformation der israelischen Gesellschaft (Frankfurt, Germany: Suhrkamp, 1992), pp. 266ff.

⁶⁴Ohana, op. cit., p. 14.

⁶⁵Ohana's book provides an in-depth analysis of the debate on Messianism and the State of Israel between Ben-Gurion and Israeli intellectuals of the time. Ohana, op. cit.

⁶⁶Ibid., p. 66.

⁶⁷Asher Arian, The Second Republic: Politics in Israel (Chatham, NJ: Chatham House, 1998).

⁶⁸Sandler, op. cit.

⁶⁹Gershom Gorenberg, The Accidental Empire: Israel and the Birth of the Settlements, 1967–1977 (New York: Times Books, 2006).

⁷⁰Aran, op. cit., p. 273.

⁷¹Neve Gordon, Israel's Occupation (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008), p. 5.

⁷²Cited in Hertzberg, op. cit., p. 429.

⁷³Ithamar Gruenwald, ‘Mysticism and Politics in the State of Israel’ in Jacob Neusner (ed.) Religion and the Political Order. Politics in Classical and Contemporary Christianity, Islam, and Judaism (Saint Louis, MO: Scholars Press, 1996), pp. 95–108, p. 101.

⁷⁴Claudia Baumgart-Ochse, Demokratie und Gewalt im Heiligen Land (Baden-Baden, Germany: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, 2008).

⁷⁵Aran, op. cit.; and Gideon Aran, ‘The Father, the Son, and the Holy Land: The Spiritual Authorities of Jewish-Zionist Fundamentalism in Israel’ in R. Scott Appleby (ed.) Spokesmen for the Despised. Fundamentalist Leaders of the Middle East (Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 294–327.

⁷⁶Zertal and Eldar, op. cit., p. 12.

⁷⁷Ram, op. cit., p. 68. For an overview of this debate, see for example Daniel Gutwein, ‘Left and Right Post-Zionism and the Privatization of Israeli Collective Memory’ in Anita Shapira and Derek Jonathan Penslar (eds) Israeli Historical Revisionism. From Left to Right (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 9–42; and Anita Shapira, ‘The Strategies of Historical Revisionism’ in Anita Shapira and Derek Jonathan Penslar (eds) Israeli Historical Revisionism. From Left to Right (London: Frank Cass, 2003), pp. 62–76.

⁷⁸Gordon, op. cit., p. 6.

⁷⁹Steffen Hagemann, Die Siedlerbewegung (Schwalbach, Germany: Wochenschau-Verlag, 2010), p. 167.

⁸⁰Gordon, op. cit., p. 6.

⁸¹Oren Yiftachel, ‘“Ethnocracy”: The Politics of Judaizing Israel/Palestine’, Constellations, 6:3 (1999), pp. 364–390.

⁸²Zertal and Eldar, op. cit., pp. 56–61.

⁸³Wald, op. cit., p. 115.

⁸⁴Ram, op. cit., p. 69.

⁸⁵David Makovsky, Making Peace with the PLO: The Rabin Government's Road to the Oslo Accord (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1996).

⁸⁶Benny Morris, Righteous Victims: A History of the Zionist-Arab Conflict, 1881–2001 (New York: Vintage Books, 2001), p. 195.

⁸⁷An analysis of crucial speeches by Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and Foreign Minister Shimon Peres which demonstrate their attempt to disentangle religion and secular nationalism can be found in Baumgart-Ochse, op. cit. pp. 228–232.

⁸⁸Between 1993 and 2000, the number of settlers in the occupied Palestinian territories roughly doubled from 100,000 to 200,000 people.

⁸⁹Michael Barnett, ‘The Israeli Identity and the Peace Process: Re/creating the Un/thinkable’ in Michael Barnett and Shibley Telhami (eds) National Identity and Foreign Policy in the Middle East (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002), pp. 58–87.

⁹⁰Giora Goldberg, ‘The Electoral Fall of the Israeli Left’ in Daniel J. Elazar and Shmuel Sandler (eds) Israel at the Polls, 1996 (London: Frank Cass, 1998), pp. 53–72, p. 57; See also Jonathan Rynhold, ‘Cultural Shift and Foreign Policy Change – Israel and the Making of the Oslo Accords’, Cooperation & Conflict, 42:4 (2007), pp. 419–440.

⁹¹Daniel J. Elazar and Shmuel Sandler, ‘Introduction: The Battle over Jewishness and Zionism in the Post-Modern Era’ in D. J. Elazar and S. Sandler (eds) Israel at the Polls, 1996. (London: Frank Cass, 1998), pp. 1–32, p. 7.

⁹²Gordon, op. cit., p. xix.

⁹³Dalsheim, op. cit., p. 136.

⁹⁴Ibid., p. 126.

⁹⁵Ibid., p. 125.