: Volume VI June 1999 Number 4
: The Religious-Secular Divide in Israeli Politics
: Shmuel Sandler, Robert O. Freedman, Shibley Telhami
: The following is the edited text of a Sadat Forum held at the Brookings
: Institution on February 23, 1999. The cosponsors are the Brookings
: Foreign
: Policy Program and the Anwar Sadat Chair for Peace and Development at
: the University of Maryland.
: SHMUEL SANDLER, Sara and Simha Lainer Chair in Democracy and Civility,
: BarIlan University
: On Sunday, February 14, 1999, two big religious-secular demonstrations
: occurred in Jerusalem in which 300,000 people participated. I watched
: the
: demonstrations on television, since I did not know in which one to
: participate. This shows my personal viewpoint. I understand both sides
: and I will
: try to be as fair as I can be in presenting the rivalry between them.
: Public-opinion polls indicate that Israelis see the internal divide as
: very critical.
: Most of them believe that this divide is sharper than the one between
: Arabs and Israelis or between Israelis and Palestinians.
: Turning to behavior, unprecedented events in inter-Jewish relations have
: occurred over the last two decades. The first was the emergence
: between 1979 and 1983 of the "Jewish underground," where for the first
: time religious Jews took the law into their own hands in the
: administered
: territories. Some of them even planned to blow up the Dome of the Rock
: mosque in order to stop the Camp David peace process. Such an incident
: was designed to drag Israel and the Muslim world into an inter-religious
: war. The second event, the most extreme, was the assassination of Prime
: Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a religious Jew, again designed to stop the
: peace process [see the review of Murder in the Name of God in this
: journal].
: This act followed a decree by Zionist rabbis that religious soldiers
: should refuse to evacuate settlers if and when the Oslo peace process
: required
: such acts. The third is the occurrence of demonstrations and threats
: against judges of the Supreme Court, endeavors that imply distrust on
: the
: part of many religious Jews of the institution that represents the
: normative power of the state. These three indicators reflect the deep
: religious-secular divide in Israel.
: Why did the conflict between religious and secular Jews in Israel break
: out at this juncture? From a political-science point of view, I must
: explain
: why the relatively stable church-state relationship that had existed
: since the inception of the Jewish state collapsed. Why did the
: power-sharing
: arrangement, which was the basis of Israeli politics and which
: functioned in the past, suddenly come to an end? The second problem in
: understanding the crisis is that, from a social perspective, the crisis
: is not inherent and hence not inevitable. Based on a 1993 study of the
: Louis
: Guttman Israel Institute of Applied Social Research, religious practices
: and beliefs of Israeli Jews divide along a spectrum rather than a split.
: Ethnic-politics theory identifies "divided societies" with a dichotomy,
: as is the case in Northern Ireland, where one is either a Catholic or a
: Protestant. Such divisions characterized Holland in the past and today
: describe Canada or Belgium. Divisions along a spectrum usually bring
: stability. Israelis in high proportions do keep certain practices and
: maintain core beliefs. While only 24 percent define themselves as
: religious, over
: 60 percent believe in God; only 13 percent do not. Almost 80 percent
: "keep a seder on Passover," while 56 percent never attend synagogue.
: Israelis are divided between the religious (ultraorthodox and modern
: Orthodox) on the one hand and the secularist on the other, with many in
: the
: middle not defined as either. This situation should not lead inevitably
: to conflict and irreconcilable divisions. In the lack of a dichotomy
: that typically
: characterizes deeply divided societies, the question we must ask is, why
: did the secular- religious divide break out now and in such a sharp
: manner?
: I can suggest several explanations. First, events in Israel are part of
: a world-wide phenomenon: the comeback of God. The reawakening of
: religious
: dogmas, related to the disappointment of people in the effectiveness of
: the state, awakens fear in others and brings them to react. An
: indication
: of the return of religion to the public square is the ethno-religious
: conflict between Hindus and Muslims in India. The occurrence of Hindu
: extremism
: is unique. Intolerance is more common in monotheistic religions like
: Islam, Christianity and Judaism, as belief in one God is exclusive.
: Samuel
: Hungtington's "clash of civilizations" idea reflects this new global
: phenomenon of cultural conflicts in which Israel takes part.
: The second possible explanation for the timing is the winding down of
: the Arab-Israeli conflict. When the external threat declines, it is to
: be
: expected that societies will turn to internal conflicts that had been
: pushed aside.
: I now turn to the domestic scene. A theory widely accepted in explaining
: politics in Europe is "consociationalism." In American terminology, it
: means
: power sharing by elites. This arrangement has characterized politics in
: divided European countries, where elites of opposing camps after
: elections
: reach an agreement on how to divide power and thus encourage their
: respective camps to support state institutions. This arrangement, which
: characterized relations between the secular and religious camps in
: Israel, broke down in 1977. With the defeat of Labor, the new coalition
: was no
: longer an alliance between two ideologically opposing elites. It was a
: coalition between parties close to one another, a nationalist party
: (Likud) and
: a national religious one (NRP, the National Religious party). Though
: secular, the Likud and its leader Menachem Begin attracted the
: ultraorthodox
: parties into the government. In this new government coalition, the
: elites sharing power did not bring into the arrangement ideologically
: opposing
: camps but rather contiguous groups. Indeed, after 1977 the "historical
: alliance" between Labor and the NRP broke down and has never been
: reconstructed. In the absence of an arrangement between elites, friction
: seeps down to the masses.
: A second internal explanation would be that the National Religious party
: had changed from a moderate party in foreign affairs into a hawkish
: party.
: Religious Zionism, which served as a bond between the two camps, by
: changing its attitudes on foreign policy and adopting some of the maxims
: of
: ultraorthodoxy, abandoned its traditional role of a bridge between
: traditionalism and modernity. The Israeli political map is divided along
: a left- right
: horizontal axis and a secular-religious vertical axis. Shas (the
: Sephardi religious party) and Agudat Yisrael (AY, the ultraorthodox
: party) are in the
: center in terms of the left-right divide on foreign policy; they lie
: opposite to Labor, the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) and the two Arab
: parties on
: the horizontal axis. Hence, instead of cross-cutting cleavages that
: contribute to stability, the political map reflects a divided polity.
: The departure
: of the NRP from the Labor camp to the opposite one created a vacuum that
: no party has been able to fill. Moreover, this shift created an
: association of religion with hawkishness in foreign policy, thus
: reinforcing the two cleavages rather than blending them.
: Why could no one fill the NRP's place? For historical reasons, it is
: hard for Agudat Yisrael and the Sephardi elites to associate with Labor.
: Ultraorthodox leaders accuse Labor of the secularization of Israel and
: have found no ideological grounds for forgiveness. The Sephardi Jews
: blamed
: Labor for their low status in Israeli society and the destruction of
: their traditional family structure when they were absorbed into modern
: Israel.
: Only the NRP, as a modern-Orthodox party, had the ideological framework
: that could serve as a bridge between the two camps, and its departure
: from its traditional role shook the fabric of Israeli society.
: The collapse of power-sharing and the shift of allegiance by the NRP
: illustrates the phenomenon of overlapping cleavages replacing
: cross-cutting
: ones. Instead of reconciling, the leaders of the opposing camps pulled
: society apart. Overlapping cleavages in Israeli society were
: traditionally
: identified with the divide between Arabs and Jews (religion, income,
: societal status, ethnicity). In contemporary Israel the Arab parties are
: now in
: the same camp as Labor. The Jewish-Arab divide, while still strong
: enough, is beginning to break down; the religious-secular cleavage is on
: the rise.
: Finally, not only did the religious camp change, but so did Israeli
: secular society. Paradoxically, with Israeli society distancing itself
: from Marxism
: and socialism, it became more secular. Permissive Western norms cannot
: be stopped at the social or geopolitical borders. Cable TV and
: satellites
: have imported practices and beliefs. The breakdown of socialism as an
: ideology created a vacuum at both the elite and mass levels that was
: replaced by post-modern individualism and Western liberal democracy.
: While the religious camp kept its traditional communal and collective
: value
: system and even moved further toward communalism and segregation,
: secular Israeli society abandoned its collective norms and practices.
: The
: emphasis on individualism and personal success diluted Zionist maxims,
: thus weakening what was once defined by Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don-
: Yehiya as Israel's civil religion. With secular Israel becoming more
: secular than ever before, secular and religious Jews grew further apart.
: To the
: ultraorthodox, the fact that the Supreme Court, which lacks proportional
: representation, intervenes in the legislative process and also forms the
: values of Israeli society presents a threat to the "Jewishness" of the
: state.
: The secular-religious divide could also be defined in the postmodern
: language of the politics of identity. Each side
: looks at the other and defines itself in terms of the other's opposite.
: The religious sees the secular as empty and
: the secular sees the religious as backward. Secularism is perceived as
: lacking in values and hedonistic, while
: religion is seen as a menace, aimed at conquering society and pulling it
: back to the Middle Ages. The other is seen
: as one-dimensional and the opposite of oneself.
: At this juncture, prior to the elections, the battle focuses on Supreme
: Court issues. No political institution
: represents such an antithesis to the religious person as does the
: Supreme Court. To be sure, the power and the
: role of the Court have changed drastically over the last two decades,
: especially since the election of new Chief
: Justice Aharon Barak [no relation to Ehud Barak, the prime minister]. As
: the president of the Court, Barak led a
: constitutional revolution by transforming the traditional approach of
: the courts toward political issues. He regards
: every issue as adjudicable, whereas the previous court usually abstained
: from intervening in controversial issues that divided Israeli society.
: The
: current philosophy of the Supreme Court is that everything can come
: before the judiciary. Traditionally an issue like the
: Reform-Conservative split
: would have been referred back to the Knesset as a political issue. For a
: while the new court intervened repeatedly in issues of state and
: religion
: and forced the Knesset to act or else to accept the court's liberal
: interpretation. Since Barak's election, many of the vacancies on the
: Supreme
: Court have been filled by jurists who were known to be close to his
: point of view. Since Israeli Supreme Court judges are not chosen by the
: chief
: executive, Barak has succeeded in creating a court in his own image.
: Thus, instead of a pluralistic court, Israel today has a very
: homogeneous one,
: ruled by Barak.
: To the ultraorthodox, the fact that the Supreme Court, which lacks
: proportional representation, intervenes in the legislative process and
: also forms
: the values of Israeli society presents a threat to the "Jewishness" of
: the state. Ironically, the Supreme Court has become a Council of
: "secular
: sages," comparable to the ultraorthodox Council of Sages. To some, Barak
: is now the chief rabbi of secular Israel. To justify his approach, Barak
: even uses Jewish phrases that have a religious tone. Mimicking the
: Jewish expression "the whole land is full of His glory," Barak coined
: the
: expression "the whole land is Law." The fact that the Supreme Court is
: not elected, but appointed by a committee in which jurists have a
: majority,
: provides it with an elitist image lacking the element of representative
: democracy. In the United States, voters electing a president know that
: they
: indirectly also have a say on who will fill vacancies on the Supreme
: Court. With this element missing in Israel, the religious segment feels
: the lack of
: any influence over the organ that sets the norms of Israeli society. In
: contrast, secular Israel views the Supreme Court as a bastion of
: democracy
: and enlightenment.
: At the risk of trying to look into the future, which is always
: dangerous, I will conclude with two insights. First, despite the crisis,
: I do not think we
: are entering a civil war, for one main reason. Jewish tradition, based
: on the historic myth that the "second commonwealth" was destroyed
: because
: of a hatred between Jews that resulted in an exile of 2,000 years, would
: prevent it. This myth, accepted especially by the religious, is also
: shared
: by secular Jews: When brother fights brother it will lead to the end of
: the state and of the third commonwealth.
: The second insight regards the election. The new electoral system in
: which Israelis vote directly for the prime minister doesn't ease the
: tensions
: between religious and secular Jews. A pattern in which religious and
: traditionalist Jews tending toward the hawkish side vote for one
: candidate and
: secularists vote in high numbers for the other sharpens the divide
: rather than heals it. Should such electoral behavior occur, it will
: bring out the
: overlapping cleavages in society rather than the cross-cutting ones. One
: can only hope that, following the elections, the winner will have enough
: wisdom to form a national unity government to heal the splits in
: society.
: "Religion in Israel-Diaspora Relations" ROBERT O. FREEDMAN, President,
: Baltimore Hebrew University
: Religious issues have always been problematic in relations between the
: Zionist movement and Diaspora Jewry. This began with the active
: opposition
: of both Reform and Orthodox Jews to the establishment of the Zionist
: movement in 1897 by essentially secular Jews. It continues today in the
: conflict between American Reform and Conservative Jews, on the one hand,
: and the Israeli government, which they see as kowtowing to the
: Orthodox in Israel, on the other. While there have been some periods of
: relative calm in the relationship, such as between 1967 and 1982 and
: again
: from 1992 to 1996, when issues of Israel's security became paramount,
: the underlying tensions have always been there. They are probably at
: their
: highest point in history today. My analysis comes both from academic
: study and also from being a participant/observer in some of the events I
: will
: discuss.
: While the modern Zionist movement called for the establishment of a
: Jewish state secured by the support of the great powers, it ran into
: immediate
: opposition from both ends of the Jewish spectrum. Reform Jews at that
: time felt that the dispersion of Jews around the world was the will of
: God,
: and any attempt to rebuild a Jewish state would go against God's plan,
: as well as threaten the status of Jews in their respective countries.
: Orthodox Jews opposed Zionism for two reasons. First, the overwhelming
: majority of the earliest Zionists were secular Jews who, in the view of
: the
: Orthodox, had broken with tradition. Second, the concept had risen among
: Orthodox Jews that there could be no re- establishment of a Jewish
: state until the Messiah came. Indeed, Agudat Israel was formed as a
: party to oppose Zionism.
: During the 1920s and 1930s, the situation changed somewhat. The American
: Reform movement, witnessing the rise of antisemitism in Poland and
: Germany, took a more neutral stand on Zionism, while the ultraorthodox
: Agudat Israel, which had been cooperating politically with the Polish
: government, grudgingly became willing to cooperate with the Jewish
: leadership in the Palestine Mandate while keeping them at arms length.
: Meanwhile, the religious Zionist Orthodox leader, Rabbi Abraham Kook,
: legitimated secular Zionism for his Orthodox coreligionists by stating
: that the
: secular Zionists, in preparing for the Jewish state, had the spark of
: the Messiah in them, even if they themselves did not recognize it.
: While during and immediately after the Holocaust there was an increase
: in support for a Jewish state among American Jews, at the time of the
: proclamation of the state in May 1948, American Jewry remained split,
: with the American Council for Judaism breaking with Reform Judaism as
: Reform Jews became more supportive of Israel.
: American Jewish support for Israel skyrocketed on the eve of the June
: 1967 Six-day War, when American Jews thought another potential Holocaust
: situation was developing. American Jewish communities organized around
: fund-raising federations and began sending $350 million to Israel
: annually.
: Despite marginal opposition, American Jewish support remained high until
: the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when serious questioning of the
: Israeli government began within the Jewish community. Simultaneously, a
: bitter dispute broke out between the U.S. Jewish leadership and Israel
: over the destination of exiting Soviet Jews, with American Jews arguing
: for freedom of choice and Israeli leader Menachem Begin demanding that
: they go to Israel. Meanwhile, Israeli government support for such
: Christian fundamentalist leaders as Jerry Falwell also angered U.S. Jews
: because
: Falwell's view of a Christian America differed strongly from American
: Jewry's view of a pluralistic America.
: During the 1967-82 period, religious issues did not come to the
: forefront of the relationship, although the religious parties holding
: the balance of
: political power between Labor and Likud after 1977 became more
: assertive. Religious issues were to emerge as a major factor in
: Israel-Diaspora
: relations in 1988 when the "Who is a Jew?" question, perhaps better
: defined as, "Who is a rabbi?" burst forth. The Shas party, which had
: become a
: key factor in Israeli politics by 1988, began to press to prevent Reform
: and Conservative conversions to Judaism performed abroad from being
: recognized in Israel. A delegation of the top U.S. Jewish leadership
: flew to Israel to confer with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir on this, and
: he later
: formed another national-unity government, rather than one dependent on
: the religious parties, thus preventing a confrontation with American
: Jewry. When the national-unity government collapsed in May 1990,
: however, the crisis over the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait erupted before
: religious
: issues bubbled to the surface. The Iraqi missile attacks during the Gulf
: War led to another period of rallying around Israel by American Jewry.
: Security issues dominated the relationship following the war, the most
: important being the dispute over U.S. loan guarantees relating to the
: Shamir/Sharon program of settlement-building on the West Bank, along
: with Israel's cooperation with the Madrid peace process.
: There was a period of major reconciliation between American Jewry and
: Israel during the Rabin years. In the first place, Rabin's government
: had a
: far more secular focus than did Shamir's, making American Jews, long
: enjoying church-state separation, much more comfortable. Second, Rabin's
: peace process, first with the Palestinians (1993) and then with Jordan
: (1994), was extremely (75-80 percent) popular with American Jews, who
: are
: overwhelmingly Reform and Conservative (85-90 percent). Among the 10-15
: percent of America's Jews who are Orthodox, only 50 percent were
: supportive, while in Israel, the Orthodox, particularly religious
: Zionists, bitterly opposed Rabin, with some rabbis telling Israeli
: soldiers not to obey
: orders.
: When Netanyahu took office, however, the situation changed markedly. For
: the first time the separate issues of security and religion were fused,
: as not only did Netanyahu radically slow down the peace process, he also
: formed the most religiously dependent and right-wing government in
: Israel's history. The issue of "Who is a Jew?" came to the fore again,
: but this time Reform and Conservative Jews petitioned Israel's Supreme
: Court
: for equal treatment under the law, including service on local religious
: courts. The Supreme Court supported their claims, while at the same time
: demanding that ultraorthodox men serve in the Israeli army. This, in
: turn, led ultraorthodox rabbis to denounce the Court, proclaiming that
: religious
: law transcends secular law and demanding that the Knesset pass
: legislation upholding the authority of the chief rabbis over religious
: councils. This
: led Conservative and Reform Jews to threaten not to finance or support
: those Knesset members who voted for the bill or allow them to appear in
: their synagogues.
: The situation deteriorated to the point that Rabbi Joel Meyers,
: executive vice president of the Conservative movement's Rabbinical
: Assembly, had
: to assert, "There is an emotional distancing going on between U.S. Jewry
: and Israel that is very difficult to overcome. It could have practical
: implications in terms of feeling part of the same family...even
: politically. The American Jewish community has been a strong lobbyist on
: behalf of
: Israel. Can that still happen?" ("Girding for Battle: Jewish World,
: Pluralism under Fire," Jerusalem Report, March 1, 1999, p. 32). Rabbi
: Myers is a
: cautious man and not given to hyperbole. American charitable federations
: cannot raise money for Israel any more and are dropping their funding,
: but since the U.S. government gives Israel $3 billion annually, that
: $350 million is not so important.
: In conclusion, let me note that we are perhaps at the point of the most
: serious confrontation between American Jewry and Israel since the state
: was established in 1948. Unless there is a sharp improvement in the
: quality of leadership in Israel, the growing gap between Israel and the
: American
: Jewish community may reach dangerous proportions.
: "New Divide in Arab Politics in Israel" SHIBLEY TELHAMI, Anwar Sadat
: Chair for Peace and Development, University of Maryland
: In Israel, the religious-secular divide among Jews is increasingly
: matched by a similar one among Arabs, as recently exemplified by the
: unprecedented sectarian troubles in Nazareth, Israel's largest Arab
: town. As peace takes hold between Israel and the Palestinians, this
: divide will
: move to the center stage of politics.
: Although the recent tensions among Arabs in Israel have taken a
: sectarian shape along Christian-Muslim lines, the central issue is the
: mobilization
: of voters for new parties, away from the non-sectarian Hadash party,
: made up mostly of former Communists. For years, the Communist party in
: Israel was dominant among Arabs, especially in Nazareth, as the only
: non-Zionist party. It championed Arab and Palestinian rights and drew
: support
: from Muslims, Christians and some Druze. The broader questions about
: Arab rights in Israel and about the Palestinians trumped sectarian
: divisions.
: Oddly, Hadash's Communist predecessor represented a secular
: Arab-nationalist trend in Israel. Its power was bolstered by important
: services to the
: community, most notable among them its program to send young members to
: the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe for professional education,
: especially in medicine. Most came back as prominent members of the
: community and party activists. The party also benefited from the absence
: of
: non-Zionist competition.
: The demise of the Soviet Union, the Oslo agreements between Israel and
: the Palestinians, and the rise of new Arab parties to compete with the
: communists combined to undercut support for the Hadash party. Until the
: last Israeli election, all Arab parties running in the elections for the
: Knesset in Israel emphasized Arab identity and did not seek to tap into
: sectarian differences. Much of this changed after the Oslo accords.
: Perhaps the most important change was the political mobilization of
: Islamic groups. Although Islamic groups had mobilized at the local level
: before
: and ousted competitors, including Communists, from local offices, they
: had not felt comfortable entering national politics because this would
: entail
: their acceptance of Israel. The Oslo agreements resulted in a new
: willingness to enter into national politics. The tendency was bolstered
: by the
: fact that the Arab parties during the Rabin-Peres government enjoyed
: unprecedented influence. They were able to deliver many state services
: to
: the community because they were critical for the ruling coalition,
: although they were not officially part of the government. The Islamists
: wanted in.
: The promise of new voters, many of whom had never voted in national
: elections before, led the small Arab Democratic party to enter into a
: coalition with a faction within the Islamist movement. This alliance
: worked in the Israeli elections that brought Benjamin Netanyahu to power
: in
: 1996, resulting in the doubling to four of the members of the Arab
: Democratic party in the Knesset, including two members from the Islamic
: movement. Increasingly, the Islamic movement became the core
: constituency of the party. Sectarianism within Arab politics in Israel
: was thus
: born.
: The 1999 election campaign witnessed intense competition for Arab votes
: among three Arab parties. It was preceded the year before by a similarly
: intense competition in elections for town councils that had far reaching
: ramifications for Nazareth, traditionally dominated by the Communists
: and
: their successors. Although most of the time the mayor of Nazareth has
: been a "Muslim" Communist, most recently, the elected mayor has been a
: "Christian" Communist. Until recently, this distinction has not been
: particularly important, even though the majority of Nazareth's citizens
: are
: Muslim. But Mayor Ramez Jaraisi faced a serious political problem to
: which his party had not been accustomed: the city council was controlled
: by
: the Islamic movement. This powerful demonstration of gains by the
: Islamic movement at the expense of Hadash was blamed on divisions within
: the
: secularist camp, where Hadash faced competition. But the net result was
: stalemate, with Hadash refusing to accept the new power realities in
: Nazareth and the Islamic party frustrated for losing the mayorship. It
: was a brewing conflict looking for a spark.
: The political power struggle was soon transformed into a sectarian one.
: A "Christian" mayor, in order to improve tourist access to the Church of
: the
: Annunciation for the "Nazareth 2000" commemoration of the childhood of
: Jesus, employed the help of the Netanyahu government to gain control of
: land taken by the Israeli government from the Islamic Trust (Waqf) when
: the Jewish state was established. Making the issue more explosive, the
: half-acre plot contained a shrine to a little-known Muslim warrior, the
: nephew of Saladin and one of his commanders who defeated the Crusaders
: in
: 1187. It was the perfect occasion for the Islamic movement to take
: Muslim votes away from the Hadash party and to portray Mr. Jaraisi's
: moves as
: sectarian at heart.
: The net result was the mobilization of the constituency of the Islamic
: movement. Activists constructed a tent at the site and occupied it for
: months, flying green flags and demanding the establishment of a mosque
: at the site. Its leaders proposed solutions to the crisis by building
: the
: mosque over a parking structure to accommodate the Nazareth 2000
: project. But tensions continued to rise in the run-up to the May
: elections,
: culminating in violent confrontations between Christians and Muslims at
: Easter that left 20 people injured. But the political payoff was the
: election
: result: The coalition of the Islamic movement and the Arab Democratic
: party increased its power in the Knesset to five seats; Hadash's
: representation was reduced to three.
: It is clear that the genesis of the episode in Nazareth lay in the
: exploitation of the end of the second millennium for tourism - as is the
: case with
: the Palestinian Authority's promotion of its "Bethlehem 2000" project.
: But the symbolism was too alluring to ignore. While the Islamic movement
: sought to make an issue of the mayor's moves for its political gain, the
: mayor's own drive to minimize the movement's power may have ignored
: opportunities for a political resolution to the crisis. The end result
: is the same: unprecedented Christian/Muslim tensions in Nazareth.
: Politics in the
: city, and probably among Arabs in Israel more broadly, have undergone a
: major shift.
: The Middle East Policy
: Council
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