VIEWPOINTS
Religious Diversity, Political Conflict, There is no other region in the world, where religion and politics interact, collide, and conjoin like in the Middle East. The region I come from, called the Middle East, is on the one hand the cradle of three monotheistic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, and is on the other hand a region of diverse ethnicities, religious minorities, and multiple identities. Add to that the fact that the modern history of this region has been marked for over a century by colonial history, conflicting imperial interests, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and regional instability. In this paper I will analyse three different contemporary case studies that will show the use and misuse of religion in contexts of political conflicts. In the first case study I will look at the latest debate at the United Nations Security Council regarding Israeli Settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In a second case study I will look at the interaction between religion and state in the Arab World in relation to power, and in the third I will look at the role Christian Zionists play within the current context. While the first case study will focus on a Jewish Israeli case, the second will look at a case within the Arab-Islamic region, and the third is an intra-Christian western case. After analysing these case studies, I will try to draw three important conclusions from a liberation theology point of view. Religion in the context of Occupation The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the longest ongoing conflicts in modern history. 29 | INSiGHT
This conflict, however, has its roots not in the Middle East, but in nineteenth century Europe. It was exactly 100 years ago, on November 2nd 1917 that the British Lord Arthur James Balfour promised the land of Palestine to another British-Jewish Lord Rothschild. It wasn’t the Lord God who promised the land to the Jews of Europe, but Lord Balfour. This was not done out of religious convictions, but rather part of British Imperial expansion policy on the one hand, and of interior political necessity on the other. On the one hand the European Jews were to colonise Palestine and to settle there serving British Imperial expansion and interests. On the other, the sending of the European Jewish community to Palestine was supposed to solve an interior European issue, the integration or non-assimilation of Jews in Europe. Nonetheless, religion played indirectly a role behind this declaration. For many Zionist Christians in Great Britain the restoration of the Jewish people was a precondition for the second coming of Christ. A subtle anti-Arab and anti-Muslim theology was the other side of this coin. The Balfour declaration was issued at a time when the British army, stationed in Egypt, were ready to storm southern Palestine. The plan for a National Home for the Jewish people was thus one of the deals and outcomes of the WWI. This plan was made possible in the aftermath of WWII. It was in this context that in 1947 (70 years ago) the United Nations adopted the partition plan to divide Palestine into two states. A year later the State of Israel was established. The new state chose a biblical name “Israel” for itself.
The branding of the Israeli state as “biblical Israel” accelerated after 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank including East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights (50 years ago). The name chosen for the war “Six days” had a biblical connotation: like God who finished creating the creation in six days, Israel was able to finish its job by occupying the rest of Palestine and before they can rest. 1967 didn't bring rest neither to the Israeli nor to the Palestinians. On the contrary. When the international community and the political leadership of both peoples failed in achieving a just peace, people started turning more and more to religion searching there for answers. The longer the conflict remained unsolved with human intervention, the more it started getting religious connotation. The outcome of the 1967 war gave a boost to Jewish religious nationalism and to “messianic” extremist Jewish groups within Israel, who started settling in the West Bank claiming it as ancient “Judea and Samaria.” Judea and Samaria was not so much a geographical description but rather a religious claim with a clear political agenda. The Iranian revolution and the petro-dollar that flooded the gulf region gave a boost to certain forms of political Islam. Christian Zionism experienced a revival and their followers started celebrating Israel victory as a direct Divine Intervention. After Oslo and when political leaders were ready for a political compromise, the opposition utilised religion to empty that peace agreement. Rabin was killed by a religious Jewish Israeli person, and Hamas started a series of suicide attacks on Israeli targets.
