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Religion, Postmodernization, and Israeli Approaches to the Conflict with the Palestinians

2005; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 17; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/09546550590929255

1556-1836

Jonathan Rynhold,

Islamic Studies and History

ABSTRACT This article analyzes the relationship between religion and Israeli approaches to the conflict with the Palestinians. It seeks to explain why religion has become closely correlated with hawkishness since 1967. While the Jewish religion advocates no single approach to the conflict with the Palestinians, the religious have been significantly more hawkish than the nonreligious in Israel. This is because religion in Israel has reinforced ethnocentricity among the Jewish public, which in turn is highly correlated with hawkishness. Yet the correlation between religion and hawkishness only became politically prominent after 1967. This prominence is a function of the way religion has interacted with changes in Israeli political culture that were driven by the process of postmodernization. Whereas mainstream Israeli political culture has become less ethnocentric and more liberal, and consequently more dovish, the religious community has moved in the opposite direction. In this vein, religion has served to shield its adherents from most of the effects of postmodernization while simultaneously encouraging countervailing trends, which accounts for the polarization referred to above. In other words, it is the way religion has interacted with postmodernization that has made it the most effective incubator for hawkishness in Israel since 1967. Notes On these issues see Jonathan Fox, "Towards a Dynamic Theory of Ethno-Religious Conflict" Nations and Nationalism 5, no. 4 (1999): 431–63; Jonathan Fox, "Religion as an Overlooked Element in International Relations," International Studies Review 3, no. 3, (2001). Nonorthodox variants of the Jewish religion are excluded from analysis because they attract only a very small number of adherents in Israel. It is also beyond the scope of this article to discuss the role of religion among the 20 percent of non-Jewish Israelis. On the relationship between Judaism and Israeli national identity and orientations toward the peace process, see Anthony Smith, "Sacred Territories and National Conflict" Israel Affairs 5, no. 4 (1999): 13–31; Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion in Israel (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1983). Ronald Inglehart, Modernisation and Postmodernisation (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 53–74. Inglehart's earlier research referred to the shift from material values to postmaterial values, but recently he has framed this shift within the broader shift from modernity to postmodernity. For the purposes of clarity, the term postmodernization will be used consistently even when referring to Inglehart's earlier work. In the context of Israeli society, the term Sephardi refers to Jews who immigrated to Israel from North Africa and Arab countries, while the term Ashkenazi refers to Jews who immigrated to Israel from Europe. Rabbi Shach, "On Eretz Israel and Territories" in The State of Israel and the land of Israel, ed. Adam Doron (Bet Berl 1987–88): 504–505. [In Hebrew] Avi Ravitsky, Messianism, Zionism and Jewish Religious Radicalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 211. Habad is a worldwide Hassidic sect, which is differentiated from other such sects by its extensive efforts to encourage nonreligious Jews to become religious. Hapoelei Agudat Yisrael refers to a section of the ultra-Orthodox political party Agudat Yisrael formed by ultra-Orthodox Jews who set up communal agricultural settlements in Israel in the twentieth century. For further details see ibid., 181–206. Jerusalem Report, February 27, 1992, 7. See Norman Stillman, Sephardi Religious Responses to Modernity (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Press, 1995); Meir Roumani, "The Sephardi Factor in Israeli Politics," Middle East Journal 42, no. 3 (1988): 423–435. Ovadia Yosef, "Mesirat Shtachim Me'Ertz Yisrael Bimkom Pikuah Nefesh," in Lectures Given at the 31st Conference of Tora Sheba'al Pe'eh, ed. Yitzhak Rafael (Jerusalem: Mossad HaRav Kook, 1990). [In Hebrew] Zvi Yehuda Kook, Or Le Netivati (Jerusalem: Z. Y. Kook Institute, 1989). Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991), 122. Rabbi Yehuda Amital, "The Trap of the Whole Land of Israel," [In Hebrew] in The State of Israel and the Land of Israel, 495–503 (Bet Berl, 1988). for a detailed exposition of this view see Amnon Bazak, ed., 4th ed. That You Shall Live by Them: A Conflict of Values (Jerusalem: Temurot, 2000). Yeshiyahu Leibovitz, Judaism, Human Values and the Jewish State (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 223–51. Jonathan Rynhold, "Re-Conceptualising Israeli Approaches to the Palestinian Question" Israel Studies 6, no. 2 (2001): 33–52. Sprinsak, Israel's Radical Right. David Cathala-Hall, The Peace Movement in Israel 1967–87 (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1989). Ibid.; Rynhold "Re-Conceptualising Israeli Approaches." Bazak, That You Shall Live. Amital, "The Trap," Ilan Grielsammer, "Campaign Strategies of the Religious Parties," in The Elections in Israel 1984, eds. Asher Arian and Michal Shamir, 84 (Tel Aviv: Ramot, 1986). Rynhold, "Re-Conceptualising Israeli Approaches." Shach, On Eretz Israel; Yosef, "Mesirat Shtachim." Bazak, That You Shall Live, 65–66. Efriam Inbar, Gad Barzillai, and Giora Goldberg, "Positions on National Security of Israel's Ultra-Orthodox Political Leadership" Journal of Developing Societies 13, no, 2 (1997). Jerusalem Post September 26, 1991; Israeline, December 29, 1995. Gil Hoffman, "Shas Leader Reverses Land-for-Peace Ruling," Jerusalem Post, January 28, 2003. Shlomit Levy, Hanna Levinsohn, and Elihu Katz, A Portrait of Israeli Jews (Jerusalem: Israeli Democracy Institute, 2002); Tamar Herman and Efraim Yaar, Religious-Secular Relations in Israel [In Hebrew] (Tel Aviv: Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace, 1998). Yael Yishai, Land or Peace? (Stanford: Hoover Institute, 1987), 185. Asher Arian, Security Threatened (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 115–19. Herman and Yaar, Religious-Secular, 62–67. Asher Arian, Israeli Public Opinion on National Security 2002 (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies, 2002). http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/QAHeb.jhtml?qaNo = 60. In terms of ultra-Orthodox institutions, 204 million NIS of the government budget was allotted for ultra-Orthodox boarding schools in 1999, while the overall budget for yeshivas jumped from 640 million NIS in 1996 to nearly 900 million in 1999 (approximately $220 million). See Shachar Ilan, Haredim Ba'am (Jerusalem: Keter, 2000), 128–29. In 2001 the Shas educational system received more than 220 million NIS from the education budget, while a further 65 million NIS was spent on ultra-Orthodox cultural activities, see Ministry of Education Annual Audit 2002, [In Hebrew] http://207.232.9.131/hofesh/din_2002_7_8.htm. David Newman, "Reflections on 25 Years of Settlement Activity in the West Bank" Israel Affairs 3, no. 1 (1996): 65–83. Nadav Shragai, "Evacuations Proceed amid Clashes," Ha'aretz, June 27, 2003. For example, Heidi Gleit, "Masses Turn Out against Summit," Jerusalem Post, July 17, 2000. Stuart Cohen, The Scroll or the Sword? (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 1997), 27–31; Margot Dudkevitch, "Officer Jailed for Refusing to Dismantle Outpost," Jerusalem Post, June 29, 2003. Nadav Shragai, "Rabbis: No Government Has the Right to Set up a Foreign State in the Land of Israel," Ha'aretz, June 24, 2003. Samuel Peleg, "They Shoot Prime Ministers Too, Don't They? Religious Violence in Israel" Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 20, no. 1 (1997): 227–47. Mordechai Bar-On, In Pursuit of Peace (Washington DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 1996). Shmuel Sandler, "The Religious Parties," in Israel at the Polls 1981, eds. Howard Penniman and Daniel Elazar (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 105–27. Asher Arian and Michal Shamir, "Candidates, Parties and Blocs," in The Elections in Israel 1999, eds. Asher Arian and Michal Shamir (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2000). The figures were generally over 95 percent in favour of Netanyahu in ultra-Orthodox districts see http://www.knesset.gov.il/elections/index.html. Asher Cohen, "2003: Restless Youngsters" [In Hebrew] Meimad Journal 26 (2003): 2–6. Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya, Religion and Politics in Israel (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1984), 107–111. Sandler, "The Religious Parties," 118. Ha'aretz, March 28, 1990; Jerusalem Post, April 6, 1990. See Jonathan Rynhold and Gerald Steinberg, "The Peace Process and the Elections," in Israel at the Polls 2003, eds. Shmuel Sandler and Jonathan Rynhold (London: Frank Cass, 2004). Grielsammer, "Campaign Strategies," 83. Yoav Peled and Gershon Shafir, "The Roots of Peacemaking: The Dynamics of Citizenship in Israel," International Journal of Middle East Studies 28, no. 3 (1996): 391–413. Shmuel Sandler, Land of Israel, State of Israel: Ethnonationalism in Israeli Foreign Policy (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1993). On these tensions, see Ruth Gavison, "Jewish and Democratic? A Rejoinder to the 'Ethnic Democracy' Debate," Israel Studies 4, no. 1 (1999): 44–72. On republicanism, see Daniel Elazar, Covenant and Civil Society: The Constitutional Matrix of Modern Democracy (New Brunswick: Transaction, 1998). Rynhold (note 18). Republicanism is also referred to in the literature as statism. Especially since the Rabin assassination efforts have been made to remedy this, see the journal Judaism and Democracy [In Hebrew] (Ramat Gan: Bar Ilan University Press). On the relative paucity of universal values within the halachic discourse on politics, see Gerald Blidstein, "Halacha and Democracy," Tradition 21, no. 1 (1997): 8–37. Shach, On Eretz Israel. Liebman and Don-Yehiya, Civil Religion. Arian, Security Threatened, 178–186. Edward Shils, "Nation, Nationality, Nationalism and Civil Society," Nations and Nationalism 1, no. 1 (1995): 93–112; Smith, "Sacred Territories." The ultra-Orthodox maintain their own separate educational system and their own press. They do not watch television or mix socially with nonreligious Jews. A large proportion of the men are not part of the general workforce and almost none serve in the army. Yonathan Shapria, The Road to Power: Herut Party in Israel (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991), 19. Cohen, The Scroll, 28. Liebman and Don-Yehiya, Religion and Politics, chapter 2. Michael Brecher, The Foreign Policy System of Israel (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972), 169–74, 179–80. Michael Rosenak, "Religious Reactions: Testimony and Theology," in The Impact of the Six Day War, ed. Stephen Roth (Basingstoke: MacMillan, 1988): 209–31. Amnon Rubinstein, The Zionist Dream Revisited (New York: Shocken, 1981), chapter 6. Moshe Dayan, Mapa Hadasha (Tel Aviv: Maariv, 1969), 173. Yishai, Land or Peace?, chapter 6; Arian (note 31) chapter 4. The Lebanon War was the catalyst for the foundation of the religious peace movement Netivot Shalom. Its founder and leader, Rabbi Amital, was formerly identified with Gush Emunim. Peled and Shafir, "Roots of Peacemaking." Arian, " Security Threatened, 30–31. Jonathan Rynhold, "Barak, the Israeli Left and the Oslo Peace Process," Israel Studies Forum 19, no. 1, (2003): 9–33. Ilan, Haredim Ba'am. Peled and Shafir, "Roots of Peacemaking." Liebman and Don-Yehiya, Religion and Politics, 102–37. Yair Sheleg, HaDati'im HeChadashim (Jerusalem: Keter, 2000). Nadav Shragai, "Religious, Right-Wing and Realistic," Ha'aretz, February 15, 2001; Aryeh Dayan, "A Haredi Home in the Likud," Ha'aretz, November 21, 2002. Sheleg, HaDati'im, 164. Shragai, "Religious, Right-Wing," Nadav Shragai, "Dizzying Growth in Haredi Betar Ilit in West Bank," Ha'aretz, July 13, 2003. Inglehart, Modernisation and Postmodernisation. Ibid, 80–107. Ephraim Ya'ar, "Value Prioritisation in Israeli Society," Comparative Sociology 1, no. 3–4 (2002): 347–68. Ibid. Inglehart, Modernisation and Postmedernisation, 22–23. Samuel Heilman and Steven Cohen, Cosmopolitans and Parochials: Modern Orthodoxy in America (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1989). Ronald Inglehart and Scott Flanagan, "Controversies: Value Change in Industrial Societies," American Political Science Review 81, no. 4 (1987): 306–08. Liebman and Don-Yehiya, Religion and Politics, 102–106, 113–14, 127.