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Countering Violence in the Name of God in Present Day Palestine/Israel

2016; Wiley; Volume: 68; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/erev.12200

1758-6623

Jamal Khader,

Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and Political Violence

Talking about the Middle East since the beginning of this century, no one can avoid talking about “religion,” “religious tension,” “religious terrorism” etc. The conflict in Israel/Palestine is often presented as a “religious conflict,” mainly between Muslims and Jews. The Holy Land is holy for the three monotheistic religions: Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. What is the role of religion in the conflict? Is the conflict a “religious one”? Is violence inherent to religion? In history, religions were often promoters of violence and religions. Are religions playing again the same role in inciting to violence, especially after 9/11? This article takes a close look at the role of religion, and especially religious fundamentalism in the Middle East, and more specifically the Holy Land and its influence on the Palestinian–Israeli conflict. The question remains: Is religion in the Palestine–Israel conflict part of the problem or part of the solution? As simple or naïve as this question may seem, the future of justice and peace in the Middle East depends on the answer. We may define fundamentalism as “the affirmation of religious authority as holistic and absolute, admitting of neither criticism nor reduction; it is expressed through the collective demand that specific creedal and ethical dictates derived from scripture be publicly recognized and legally enforced. The fundamentalists of the three Abrahamic religions feel it is their mission to establish earthly theocracies in preparation for the arrival of a messiah. They use political influence to enact government laws and regulations that will give their beliefs the force of secular law thereby forcing everyone to live according to their moral precepts.”1 Several writers have studied fundamentalism and its common characteristics.2 Theologically, we can see several traits that may lead to fundamentalism, and eventually to violence in the name of God. First, each of the three monotheistic religions claims to be the one true religion of God on earth. Each has the right to do so, but if this means in the process the fight to prove the others are wrong, the conclusions are different. The logic of “true or wrong,” “light or darkness,” “white or black” tends to divide the world into righteous people and evil ones; then the battle is ready to get rid of the evil, in the name of God.3 Second, violence is not expressed only in physical violence; exclusiveness is another characteristic. The example of the Holy Land is clear. This land is holy for Jews, Christians, and Muslims. To exclude the others seems to be the logic of many to preserve the holiness of the land. Third, holy scriptures represent the basics of any religion. The possibility of different interpretations or a selection of these texts, together with a lack of authority to define the truth of these texts, can pave the way to manipulation of these texts for political reasons, where someone may look for a pretext or excuse to support their own ideology. Fourth, fundamentalists take a simplistic approach. Because the situation is complex, fundamentalists tend to oversimplify the questions and the answers. “God gave us the land (the Holy Land),” is one of these slogans that can convince people to join the struggle to do “God's will”. Fifth and finally, pretending to speak in God's name and defending his interests may lead to a legitimization of war: be it in the name of forthcoming eschatological times, the fulfilment of God's promises of a land, or to spread the “true” religion of God. In the Middle East, religion and politics are mixed. Facing problems and challenges, every believer searches for answers in their own faith. If answers are not to be sought through a dialectical common search of all the believers, the easiest way is to address a strong leader who “has all the answers.” If these “ready answers” are not questioned, the leader bears the responsibility of leading his audience into a one-sided vision. The response of the Palestinians, after the Arab defeat of 1948 and 1967, was political, secularist, and nationalist. The Palestinian cause was seen by Palestinians as a national disaster, where struggle should lead to the return of Palestinians to their land and the foundation of a secular and democratic state.4 The religious argument was totally absent from their literature. With the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, and especially after the Iranian revolution in 1979, the religious dimension became more evident. The Islamic movement began its interpretation of the conflict in religious terms. Faithful to the Muslim Brotherhood way in establishing a Muslim society from the grassroots, the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yasin, initiated the type of welfare program that was associated with the Muslim Brotherhood. It established a charitable network in the Gaza Strip, consisting of clinics, drug-rehabilitation programs, youth clubs, sporting facilities, and Quran classes. Hamas and the Islamic Jihad interpreted the Palestinian tragedy in religious terms. This came about “because the people had neglected their religion”; “Palestinians would only shake off Israeli rule when they return to Islam.”5 They were fighting a battle for the future of the entire ummah. Islamic Jihad was interested in armed struggle against Israel: “Palestine is a a waqf (religious endowment) land. It is a sharia (Islamic judicial system) ruling that any land acquired by the Muslims by force is proclaimed Islamic endowment for the Muslims. It is an eternal Islamic heritage.”6 This claim becomes exclusive. Hamas deplores the loss of Islamic values. Their fight is in the name of God. Their objectives are “the fighting against the false, defeating it and vanquishing it so that justice could prevail, homelands be retrieved and from its mosques would the voice of the mu'azen emerge declaring the establishment of the state of Islam.” As there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad, the individual duty of every Muslim, Hamas considers the “initiatives, and peaceful solutions and international conferences, in contradiction to its principles,” they are considered “a waste of time and vain endeavors.” The link between religion and nationalism is strong; it considers that “abusing any part of Palestine is abuse directed against part of religion. Nationalism of the Islamic Resistance Movement is part of its religion … Hamas does not consider these conferences capable of realizing the demands, restoring the rights or doing justice to the oppressed. These [peace] conferences are only ways of setting the infidels in the land of the Muslims as arbitrators.” Hamas considers the Palestinian problem to be a religious one, and should be dealt with on this basis. And “Jihad is not confined to the carrying of arms and the confrontation of the enemy. The effective word, the good article, the useful book, support and solidarity - together with the presence of sincere purpose for the hoisting of Allah's banner higher and higher - all these are elements of the Jihad for Allah's sake.” Finally Hamas asks the Arab and Islamic peoples to back and support Hamas, “as Allah wants them to, extending to it more and more funds till Allah's purpose is achieved.” And when will this “purpose” be achieved? The same Covenant predicts that there will be a “constant struggle till the Day of Judgment in the Holy Land.” As we see, Hamas, as part of the Islamic fundamentalism as lived in Palestine, makes its own reading of the Quran, and is convinced it is doing God's will. To defend the holiness of the land and God's rights, Hamas is ready to fight the eschatological battle “till the Day of Judgment.” Hamas is nourished by the uncertainty of the situation, poverty, religious feelings, and the absence of any future and just solution of the Palestinian problem. It constitutes a typical phenomenon of fundamentalism. Islamic fundamentalism inspired not only Hamas, but a wide range of the Palestinian population: suicide bombers come from the Fatah movement, from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), a Marxist inspired movement, as well as from Hamas. What used to be a national and a territorial problem has taken on an impressive religious dimension. Jewish fundamentalism is no different from Islamic. The argument is simple: “God gave us this land, it is a Holy Land (Eretz Yesrael); it is ours and only ours”; “if the State of Israel was viewed as the unfolding of a Messianic scenario, then the miraculous victory of the 1967 War was an essential stage in that process. The territories belong to the Jewish people (i.e., the State of Israel) by Divine decree and they may not be handed over to foreign hands.” As an example of Jewish fundamentalism, the Gush Emunim movement is clear. Israeli occupation of the West Bank in the 1967 War aroused in many Israelis a passionate determination that these territories should be permanently joined to the State of Israel. Future members of Gush Emunim – whose founders first formulated the settlement ideology7 – became active in establishing Jewish settlements in the occupied territories. Not until after the 1973 War, however, did they feel a need to organize politically. After the first territorial concessions in the Sinai Peninsula, the founders of Gush Emunim determined to organize in order to oppose further territorial concessions and to promote the extension of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied territories. All of Gush Emunim's spiritual authorities and many of its leaders were educated by Avraham Yitzhak ha-Cohen Kook, the first Ashkenazi chief rabbi of Israel. Kook believed that the era of redemption for the Jewish people had already begun with the rise of modern Zionism and the growing Zionist enterprise in Palestine.8 Israel's victory in the 1967 War transformed the status of Kook's theology. Suddenly it became clear to his students that they were indeed living in the messianic age. Ordinary reality assumed a sacred aspect; every event possessed theological meaning and was part of the meta-historical process of redemption.9 Though shared by many religious authorities, this view was most effectively expounded by Kook's son, Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, the influential Rabbi in modern Jewish thought. The younger Kook defined the State of Israel as the halakhic kingdom of Israel, and the Kingdom of Israel as the kingdom of heaven on earth. The belief that they are living in the messianic age and that redemption is at hand has operational consequences for Gush members. Almost all the biblical rules regarding the Kingdom of Israel are literally applicable in the messianic age.10 Gush Emunim recognizes as its sole authority a selective interpretation of the Jewish religious law. Their aim is to create a “halachic Jewish state,”11 a theocracy where the only law is religious in nature and all obligations and rights are defined in ancient religious terms. Their “Land of Israel” is not a strip of land with territorial boundaries; it is instead a spiritual and theological concept that must be realized. To understand Gush Emunim, it is necessary to see how they manage to meld politics and religion. By self-definition, they are a group of devoted religious believers for whom the concept of compromise is practically foreign. They know the Truth, and of course Truth cannot be compromised or abandoned in any manner. According to the fundamentalists of Gush Emunim, the Land of Israel – every grain of its soil – is holy. Thus no individual can escape holiness and every place upon which a Jewish foot is set is holy12; and no one can alienate a square inch for either peace or security. In 1979 the Rabbinate ruled that no part of the Holy Land could be alienated even in the context of a peace treaty: “According to our holy Torah and unequivocal and decisive halakhic rulings, there exists a severe prohibition to pass to foreigners the ownership of any piece of the land of Israel since it was made sacred by Abraham's Covenant.”13 The Kookist rabbis were especially incensed by the Oslo Accords: “By signing away the sacred land, the government had committed a criminal act.”14 Some saw Israel Prime Minister Rabin as actively threatening the life of Jews. Yigal Amir, a former student of a religious school, said that his study of Jewish law had persuaded him that Rabin was an enemy of the Jewish people; he had a duty to kill him.15 And he did. Rabbi Israel Ariel, in an interview, was asked about current political constraints and diplomatic limitations, the rabbi replied that Joshua had far worse political constraints and limitations. When pressed further about potential casualties and national losses, the rabbi referred to a biblical ruling that in a holy war no question about casualties is legitimate until one-fifth of the nation is extinct.16 What role do the Gush Emunim fundamentalists accord the Palestinian Arabs in the age of Jewish redemption? What rights, if any, should they retain in the Holy Land of Israel? For years Gush spokesmen enumerated “three alternatives” to be presented to Arabs: acknowledge the legitimacy of the Zionist doctrine (Gush Emunim's version); obey the laws of the state without formal recognition of Zionism and in return receive the rights of resident aliens (with no political rights); or emigrate to Arab countries.17 This position stems from the conviction that the notion of universal human rights is a foreign ideal that has no meaning in the context of the Holy Land.18 In the Bible, non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine were accorded the status of resident aliens, enjoying some privileges but never obtaining rights equal to those of the Jews. One consequence of this view is that in time of war no distinction should be made between enemy soldiers and civilians since both are of the category of people who do not belong in the land. The followers of Rabbi Kook concentrated only on the more aggressive biblical passages, in which God commanded the Israelites to drive out the indigenous people of the Promised Land, to make no treaty with them, to destroy their sacred symbols, and even to exterminate them (Ex. 23:23-33; Josh. 6:17-21; 8:20-29; 11:21-25). They interpreted the belief that the Jews were God's chosen people to mean that they were not bound by the laws obligatory for other nations, but were unique, holy, and set apart. God's command to conquer the land, argued Rabbi Shlomo Aviner, was more important than “the human and moral considerations of the national rights of the gentiles to our land.”19 Their reading of the Bible is selective. Despite their small number, Gush Emunim enjoyed the support of many Israeli politicians, such as Menachem Begin, Yizhaq Shamir, and Ariel Sharon.20 In 1978, its official settlement organization was recognized by the World Zionist Organization.21 The concepts of “promised Land” and “chosen people” may imply that the possession of the land is exclusive to one religion “by divine law” (“This land was given to us by God,” they argue); therefore, Israel is represented as the historical realization of the biblical aspiration of the return to the “promised land.” And Jewish blood is more valuable than any other blood. Someone said once, “When the Jew is humiliated, God is shamed! When the Jew is attacked – it is an assault upon the Name of God!”22 What is important for us is to see the implications of these ideas on the conflict of the Middle East. The question is as follows: Is Israel a state like any other state, regulated by international law? Or should it be treated differently because it is “the realization of divine promises”? The results of such beliefs are disastrous for the Palestinians and for the possibilities of peace in the Holy Land. Palestinians are dispossessed of their land, they are not recognized as citizens with equal rights because the state is “Jewish,” the settlements are built on their land in the name of “returning to biblical sites,” refugees are denied the right to return home to what became Israel or even to the Occupied Territories (because they represent a “demographic danger” to the Jewish identity of the state of Israel). In their struggle to obtain their legitimate rights, Palestinians are faced with theological arguments about the divine law. In the name of God, human beings are humiliated and basic human rights are denied. Christian Zionism represents the Christian version of fundamentalism. Some may argue that Christian Zionism is an American phenomenon; this is true, but the special interest of Christian Zionism in the Holy Land makes it a Middle Eastern phenomenon. Christian Zionism is based upon three fundamental pillars: First, a Biblical vision of the world: an attempt to read contemporary events within a Biblical grid. Second, the eschatological question: When will Jesus return? Christian Zionists strongly promote the idea that we are at the end of times and that Christ's return is imminent. World events are seen as playing out this end of time scenario. Third, a focus on the Jewish people and the State of Israel: Christian Zionism holds that the promises to the Church for the end of time, regarding the universal recognition of Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, must be preceded by the fulfilment of the Old Testament promises to Israel. These promises include the return of the Jews to their homeland, the establishment of a Jewish state, and the building of the third temple. This will ultimately provoke the end of time war that must precede the second coming of Christ. Jews should return to the Holy Land in order to hasten the return of Jesus Christ. God would then use Israel as a divine instrument in the punishment of the unbelievers. These ideas grew in popularity within Christian evangelical circles, particularly in the US after the establishment of the State of Israel and even more so after the 1967 war and the Israeli conquest and occupation of the Biblical heartland of Judaea and Samaria. The fundamentalist reading of Old Testament history and prophecy passages focuses on the themes of election, people, and land. The biblical text is understood without any historical context or critical distance and the events described in the Bible are applied to present realities. An untroubled continuity is seen between the Jewish commonwealth in Palestine before 70 AD and the emergence of the State of Israel in 1948. The Land has been promised to the Jews and this promise is as valid today as it was in the days of Abraham. God's plan was always to work redemption through Israel. It was only because Israel refused Jesus Christ that the church was founded, this vision being founded on a reading of Romans 9-11. According to Christian Zionism, the events of 1948 (the establishment of the State of Israel) and 1967 (extension of Jewish sovereignty over the Old City of Jerusalem) seem to point to the approaching end. Particular eschatological passages in the Old Testament23 and in the New Testament (Luke 21:21-24, 1; Thess. 4-5; Apocalypse of Saint John) are used to foretell in very precise terms the triumph of “God's people” in cataclysmic events. This is understood as beginning to be fulfilled in our present times. Christian Zionists tend not only to know the details of these events but also the timetable for their realization. The years 1948 and 1967 are important turning points, as the eschatological clock has started ticking to mark the beginning of the end. In the time of tribulation (see Mark 13; Apocalypse 12-19) that precedes the second coming of Christ, Israel will fight the wars of the Lord. This will culminate in the battle of Armageddon (Apocalypse 19). After Christ returns, the thousand years (millennial) rule of Christ will begin that will culminate in the ultimate defeat of Satan and his emissaries. This time chart is full of violence, war and destruction. In this war scenario, Islam and Muslims play the role of the powers of darkness.24 Israel will confront Islam and bring it to its knees. Muslims have two options according to the Christian Zionist view: they can either convert to Christianity, accepting the Christian Zionist view, or they can die in the cataclysmic events of the end of time. Christian Arabs, in fact, have the same option as the Muslims. Christian Zionism's fusion of religion with politics works to guarantee Israeli interests. A scriptural foundation of this political behaviour is God's word to Abraham that God “will bless those that bless you and curse those that curse you” (Gen. 12:2). However, it is important to note that although Christian Zionism seems to be pro-Jewish, it is not pro-Judaism. In the end, Jews have the same ultimate choice as Muslims: confess Jesus Christ or be swallowed up in the end time catastrophes. The alliance is particularly strong between the religious elements in the Jewish Israeli right wing and the Christian Zionists. However, the alliance is a tense and fragile one. Right-wing Jewish Zionists focus on present need (in the present situation of war they need the support of the Christian Zionists who constitute an important political lobby in the US), whereas Christian Zionists focus on apocalyptic future (the Jews will be believers in Christ). Religious Jews are profoundly uncomfortable with the proselytizing of Christian Zionists and Christian Zionists are profoundly uncomfortable with the anti-Christian attitudes of right-wing religious Jews. Moments of tension have emerged on various issues.25 However, shared interests include opposition to any territorial compromise in negotiations with the Palestinians, support for the colonization of all Palestinian territories, insistence on the unity of Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty, encouraging Jewish immigration to Israel, encouraging Palestinian Arabs to leave Palestine, and hostility towards Islam and Arab nationalism. Christian Zionism was and still is influential in political life in the US and in the religious media. Christian Zionism has tragic effects on the Christians of the Arab world and their churches. The common people are not always able to distinguish between these sectarian groups and Christianity. At the very least, they embarrass the Christian churches, especially in the Holy Land. It is known that these people organize arrogant, triumphalistic, and provocative manifestations in the Old City of Jerusalem on the occasion of Succot (Feast of Tabernacles) and other Jewish festivities under the protection of the Israeli police and soldiers. Christian Zionism has a strong proselytizing movement within the Christian community in the Holy Land. They affect negatively their reading the Bible (mainly the relation between the Old and New Testament), their dialogue with Muslims, and the possibility of a positive and dialogic understanding of Judaism. Christian Zionism is a mixture of religious fundamentalism, apocalyptic visions, messianic interpretations, political ideology, and societal projects. More than a dozen senior Christian, Jewish, and Muslim leaders from the Holy Land met in Alexandria, Egypt, in January 2002 and concluded an unprecedented joint declaration pledging themselves to work together for a just and lasting peace. The agreement, which was thereafter known as the “First Declaration of Alexandria of the Religious Leaders of the Holy Land,” pledges the faith leaders to use their religious and moral authority to work for an end to violence and the resumption of the peace process. It also envisages the establishment of a permanent committee of leaders from the three religions in the Holy Land to pursue the implementation of the declaration. The main points in the Alexandria declaration are that the violence in the Holy Land is an evil that must be opposed by all people of good faith, as are incitement, hatred, and the misrepresentation of the other. First, the Holy Land is holy to all three of our faiths. Therefore, followers of the divine religions must respect its sanctity, and bloodshed must not be allowed to pollute it. The sanctity and integrity of the holy places must be preserved, and the freedom of religious worship must be ensured for all. Second, Palestinians and Israelis must respect the divinely ordained purposes of the Creator by whose grace they live in the same land that is called holy. Third, political leaders need to work for a just, secure, and durable solution in the spirit of the words of the Almighty and the prophets. Fourth, there must be a religiously sanctioned cease-fire, respected and observed from all sides. Fifth, we need to create an atmosphere where present and future generations will co-exist with mutual respect and trust in the other. That is why everyone should refrain from incitement and demonization, and educate our future generations accordingly. Sixth, the declaration calls for a joint quest for a just peace that leads to reconciliation in Jerusalem and the Holy Land, for the common good of all our peoples. A permanent joint committee was established to carry out the recommendations of this declaration, and to engage with the respective political leadership accordingly. The principal outcome of this Cairo consultation was an increase in the grassroots understanding of the religious dynamics of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, with a resolve to educate and create a positive environment for effective dialogue. Ultimately, the aim of these consultations is to create a consensus within the Jewish, Christian, and Muslim delegations in order for inter-religious dialogue to proceed effectively and augment the efforts of the political track of the Middle East peace process. After ten years of the Alexandria declaration, the process is very slow and no visible outcomes can be seen. Religion tends to play a negative role in the Holy Land. Aware of this negative role, and being believers at the same time, the authors of the Kairos document wanted to be authentic to their faith and honest in accepting the challenges of faith. A brief reading of the Kairos document26 shows the following. First, the document calls for an inclusive approach: although the Kairos is a Palestinian document, its calls for peace, justice, and security for all the inhabitants of this land. Second, instead of a choice of selected texts that may support our position, it affirms that all the Bible is the word of God; we looked at some of the most difficult texts and we tried to understand what the text tells us, not we want make the text say. Third, the document considered the issue of the other: he or she is a brother or sister; we are all created at the image of God. This image gives every human being their own dignity. Fourth, the document considers “the Land.” It is God's land, and we are stewards of this land. Even if every one of the three monotheistic religions believes that this land is unique, we ask if there is a way that we can share the land? Universality as the mission of the land is not opposed to its particularity for each religion. This land cannot be exclusive. The vision of the Kairos document is a vision of justice, peace and dignity for all, to begin with those who need it most, the Palestinians; but it does not exclude anyone. As a French intellectual puts it, with some irony: “Les fondamentalistes veulent faire la volonté de Dieu, que Dieu le veuille ou pas” (fundamentalists want to do the will of God whether God wants it or not). Every religious fundamentalist makes the same claim. The way that the fundamentalist justifies the exercise of his influence and power in society is that God is on his side, and needs his efforts to see that God's work is done. Fundamentalism is a danger in our world and a threat to peace and a just settlement of the Middle Eastern crisis. Its system of ideas is not limited to small numbers of fundamentalists; it influences the comprehension of Religion for large masses. Through its faith and total integrity to its roots, whether Muslim, Jewish or Christian, society must shape for itself a new vision of the God in whom it believes. In other words, society needs a new vision of the God to whom it submits its life, along with a new vision of all the children of God who are different from us. Our reality in the Holy Land is one of suffering, humiliation, and fear. The person believing in God is capable of more than hatred and revenge. They have a spiritual power that enables them to be victorious and to put an end to all that. We can believe in God as the source of love and peace through our faith in God. We can avoid the path of killing or hatred that spoils the purity of religion and that is born inside the spirit of man. The dignity of each person is God-given. We are all equal in this dignity. Without justice – that is, whenever rights are being violated – the way of peace remains closed. Only the ways of peace can lead to peace; peace will only be the fruit of peace. Father Jamal Khader is an administrator and teacher at the Latin Theological Seminary in Beit Jala and at Bethlehem University.