Religion, State, and the International System in the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
| Author | Hillel Frisch,Shmuel Sandler |
| Published date | 01 January 2004 |
| Date | 01 January 2004 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0192512104038168 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Religion, State, and the International System in
the Israeli–Palestinian Conflict
HILLEL FRISCH AND SHMUEL SANDLER
ABSTRACT. Why do conflicts between states and national movements
continue to be “nationalist,” concerned almost exclusively with self-
determination and control over territory, rather than crusades on behalf
of faith? Our basic claim is that the nature of the present international
system bolsters the dominant position of nationalists in a given conflict
with an opposing political entity, as well as within their own constituency.
For this reason, the Palestinian leadership has never entered a power-
sharing arrangement with the Islamists, and in Israel, the consociational
arrangement with the national religious camp floundered when this
internal arrangement threatened Israel’s relationship with its key ally, the
USA, and jeopardized its standing in the international community.
Religion expresses, however, important primordial values, particularly in
Palestinian society, and is often a crucial dimension of collective identity.
It is only natural, then, that nationalists use religious groups and their
symbols as a means in the struggle to achieve their national or state-
centered goals.
Keywords:• International system • Islam • Judaism • Israeli–Palestinian
conflict
Many studies in the recent literature on the role of religion in interstate or inter-
ethnic conflict try to understand how religion contributes both to the emergence
and persistence of conflicts. We argue that the more fundamental question, even
in the post-9/11 era, should more appropriately concern why ethnic and interstate
conflicts, however infused with religious substance, remain essentially national or
state centered. Why do so many conflicts, such as those in Kosovo, Bosnia,
Kashmir, and Cyprus, inevitably focus on self-determination and control over
territory rather than turn into crusades on behalf of a faith? In the following
article, we claim that while religion expresses prominent primordial values, the
points of contention continue to be territorially centered and the dominant
International Political Science Review (2004), Vol 25, No. 1, 77–96
DOI: 10.1177/0192512104038168 © 2004 International Political Science Association
SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi)
discourse, especially in the international arena, is usually more nationalist or
statist than religious and theocratic.
To prove these claims and explain them, we analyze a case in which religion
played a most important role—the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. The importance of
religion is indicated by the very title given the present outbreak of hostilities
beginning at the end of September 2000: the “al-Aqsa intifada” (Khatib, 2002). Al-
Aqsa is the name of the mosque situated on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, holy
both to Jews and Muslims, where the first acts of violence took place. Most
Palestinians claim that the visit by then-Israeli opposition leader Ariel Sharon to
the Temple Mount (al-Harm al-Sharif) provoked the violence. However, Israel and
some Palestinians, including some close to Arafat, claim that the violence was pre-
planned (“Roundtable,” 2001: 44).
There may be at least two other reasons behind this choice of name. First, in
the negotiations between Israeli Prime-Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian
Chairman Yasser Arafat at the Camp David summit in July 2000, the issue of
sovereignty over the Temple Mount was purportedly one of the key bones of
contention between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators (Malley and Agha, 2001).
Second, the aforementioned violence on the Temple Mount led to the most
widespread demonstrations and riots among Israel’s Arab citizens since the
establishment of the state. In the course of four days of violence, 13 Arab citizens
were killed.1Even the Palestinian Arab “nationalist” press, which usually
downplays the religious overtones of the conflict, had to report that the chants
heard during the riots and demonstrations were mostly religious in nature. In fact,
they deplored one of the most popular slogans: “Haibar, Haibar, Ya Yahud, Jaish
Muhammad saYa’ud” (“Haibar, Haibar, oh Jews recall, the army of Muhammad
will return”) (Kull al-Arab, 2000). The chant refers to a battle in 628 between the
Prophet Muhammad and the Jewish tribe of Haibar, in which the Muslim army
utterly defeated the tribe. In addition, few can deny the importance of the suicide
bombers in the current wave of violence, and, initially at least, the religious
sentiments motivating them (Luft, 2002: 2).
Nevertheless, we contend that the conflict is nationalist or state-centric rather
than theocratic. The dominant actors on both sides focused on issues of security,
sovereignty, and self-determination rather than on theocratic claims such as
creating the Sharia or halachic state. Most importantly, not only do the statist
elements remain politically dominant, but they refuse (in contrast to the religious
forces) to perceive the conflict as being essentially religious in nature.
This article is divided into three parts. The first part provides the historical
context of the current conflict, commencing with the Zionist and Israeli–
Palestinian struggle since the beginning of the British Mandate. The second
concentrates on the Israeli–Palestinian conflict since the signing of the Declara-
tion of Principles (or “Oslo Accords”) by Yitzchak Rabin and Yasser Arafat on the
White House lawn in 1993 and the Palestinian Authority a year later. In the third
part, we explain why the conflict has consistently remained nationalist rather than
theocratic, even though religious aspirations have played an important role in
dictating its course.
In our analysis, we differentiate between the state-centric level in which the
political elite formulates claims and goals and addresses them to the international
community and the domestic political level where it mobilizes support through
alliance politics. On the state level, we show that even though religious claims and
symbols were important on both sides, they were consistently eclipsed by
78 International Political Science Review 25(1)
To continue reading
Request your trial