Zionism and Political Theology

ABSTRACTThis paper is an attempt to identify what is unique about the political theology of Zionism. It also explores what the consequences of this uniqueness might be, particularly with regard to future decolonization projects of Israel-Palestine. Dealing with the case of Zionism and Israel is interesting because it allows us – in fact, it forces us – to ask questions about the nature of modernity, liberalism, secularism, colonialism and nationalism writ large. Zionism itself combines many aspects of modern Europe, including nationalism, colonialism, religion, liberalism, and socialism; this raises the question of whether we can offer a critique of Zionism that is not also a critique of the modern Europe that invented all of these categories and practices. All these issues raise the question of how we are to judge Zionism. Can we offer a critique of Zionism that is not at the same time a critique of Europe?KEYWORDS: ReligionZionismnationalismpolitical theologyPalestinesecularizationdecolonization Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).Notes1 See Yakobson and Rubinstein, Israel and the Family; and Sapir and Statman, Religion and State in Israel.2 See in general: Friling, “What Those Who Claim Zionism,” 848–872; Shapira, “The Debate Over New Historians in Israel,” 888–909; Lissak, “‘Critical Sociologists and Establishment Sociologists,” 84–108; and Aronson, “Settlement in Eretz Israel,” 217.3 For example, see Massad, “The Persistence of the Palestinian Question.” See also Zureik’s early work on the subject deploying the colonial frame in Palestinians in Israel, and his updated and extended approach in Israel’s Colonial Project in Palestine. For early approaches that locate Zionism within a global colonial and imperial frame see Trabulsi, “The Palestine Problem,” 53–90.4 See Rouhana, “Religious Claims and Nationalism in Zionism,” 54–87 and Shalhoub-Kevorkian, “Sacralised Politics,” 134–158. Both writers stress to some extent the unique case of Zionism and the difficulty in reaching a secular politics that can lead to the decolonization of Palestine.5 See my paper “Notes on the Value of Theory – Readings,” 1–44.6 In this regard, I clearly agree with Rouhana and Kevorkian’s critique of Zionism, though I differ in my level of belief in western liberal democracies and universal values.7 Derrida, for example, critiques Zionism in this way. Zionism, he argues, is just another example of identity politics. But are all identity politics the same and as bad as each other? See Raef Zreik, “Rights Respect and the Political: Notes from a Conflict Zone” in Living Together: Jacques Derrida’s Communities of Violence and Peace ed. Elisabeth Weber.8 On this distinction, see Brubaker, Nationalism and Citizenship and Plamenatz, “Two Types of Nationalism,” 22. In the context of the study of Zionism, see Sternhell, Founding Myths.9 See Piterberg, The Returns of Zionism; Rose, The Myths of Zionism; Ohana, The Origins of Israeli Mythology. See, for example, the way the Jewish Agency itself reports the different visions of Zionism and the terminology used under the rubric Zionist Dreams https://archive.jewishagency.org/jewish-community/content/24079/ (accessed on March 8 2023). In this regard I use the word “myth” not in a pejorative way to mean false representation.10 This is best manifested in Herzl’s writing. See footnotes no. 39–54 below and my discussion of Herzl.11 On the Negation of exile as organizing principle in Zionism, see Krakotzkin, “Exile Within Sovereignty” (Hebrew); Yehia “The Negation of Galut.”12 See Ophir and Rosen-Zvi, Goy: Israel's Multiple Others. In the Hebrew translated version they expand on the subject of special ways the Goy constitutes the other and the unique mode of othering.13 I refer here to Asad’s two major works Formation of the Secular and Genealogies of Religion. See also Mahmood, Religious Difference in a Secular Age.14 Asad, “Thinking About Religion” in Orsi, Cambridge Companion, 36–57.15 Schilbrack, “Religions are There Any?” 1113.16 Omer, “Modernist Despite Themselves,” 30–31.17 Brubaker, “Religion and Nationalism-Four Approaches,” 2–20; and Zubrzycki, The Crosses of Auschwitz, 118–123.18 Gellner, Nations and Nationalism; and Anderson, Imagined Communities.19 Hobsbawm, The Invention of Tradition. By contrast, some scholars associate nationalism with the period of the Spanish Inquisition. See, e.g., Marx, Faith in the Nation.20 Kedourie, Nationalism.21 Durkheim, The Elementary Forms of Religious Life.22 Ibid., 9.23 227.24 Hayes, Nationalism.25 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 24.26 Schmitt, Political Theology, 37.27 These approaches differ from those that stress the hermeneutic aspects of religion as ongoing flux of practices and interpretations. For other non-functionalist readings, see Geertz, “Religion as a Cultural System”.28 Brubaker, “Religion and Nationalism: Four Approaches,” 9; Smith, Nation and Nationalism in a Global Era; and Smith, Myths and Memories of the Nation.29 Jakelić, Collectivistic Religions.30 Hastings, The Construction of Nationhood.31 Akenson, God’s Peoples.32 Hutchinson and Lehman, Many Are Chosen.33 Muldoon, The Spiritual Conquest of the Americas; González and Justo, Christianity in Latin America; and Armitage, The Ideological Origins of the British Empire.34 Taylor, A Secular Age; Casanova, Public Religions in the Modern World; Milbank, Theology and Social Theory; Shakman Hurd, Politics of Secularism.35 Jakobson and Pellegrini, Secularism.36 Avineri, “Zionism and Jewish Religious Tradition.”37 See Yadgar, Israel’s Jewish Identity Crisis, 10.38 Ibid., Herzl, 100.39 Herzl, Altneuland, 108.40 Ibid., The Jewish State, 147.41 Ibid., 146.42 Shapira, “Herzl Ahad Ha-Am and Berdichevsky”; Laqueur, A History of Zionism, 81, 111.43 Herzl, Altneuland, 53.44 Ibid., 109.45 Ibid., 109–110.46 Ibid., 62.47 Ibid., The Jewish State, 148.48 Ibid., 14749 Ibid., 83.50 Ibid., Altneuland, 33.51 Ibid., The Jewish State, 103.52 Herzl, Altneuland, 188–9. Shlomo Avineri does not see any religious connotation here, but rather only a national one, given that the temple is a national symbol as well. See Avineri, Herzl, 167. But this is precisely the problem and not the solution.53 Herzl, Altneuland, 217.54 Ibid., 22, 145, 156, 188. David Ohana argues that the image of the Messiah continued to accompany Herzl wherever he went all of his life; Ohana, Political Theologies in the Holy Land, 8.55 Smith, Chosen Peoples.56 Greenfeld, Nationalism: Five Roads to Modernity, 51–53.57 Ibid., 66.58 Smith, Chosen Peoples.59 Aberbach, “Nationalism and Hebrew Bible,” 223–242.60 Smith, Chosen Peoples.61 Coakley, “The Religious Roots of Irish Nationalism,” 95–114.62 Mavrogordatos, “Orthodoxy and Nationalism in the Greek Case.”63 See, for example, Fusco, “Is Irish Reunification Republican?” and Ward, “Republican Political Theory and Irish Nationalism.”64 Friedland, “Money, Sex, and God,” 381–425. See also the theoretical and comparative work of Omer and Springs “Religious Nationalism”.65 Zreik and Dakwar “What’s in the Apartheid Analogy?” XX–XX; Tiryakian, “Apartheid and Religion,” 387.66 Adam and Moodley, South Africa Without Apartheid, 198.67 See Israel’s Law of Return 1950 and the amendments to the law in Section 4. See: https://www.knesset.gov.il/laws/special/heb/chok_hashvut.htm.68 See Yadgar, Israel Jewish Identity Crisis, 11–15.69 See Ben-Porat, “A State of Holiness,” 223. See also Yadgar, Israeli’s Jewish Identity Crisis, 10, 15.70 Raz-Krakotzkin, “Religion and Nationalism,” 35, see also Massad, “The Persistence of the Palestinian Question.”71 Raz- Krakotzkin, “Religion and Nationalism,” 35.72 Ibid., 38.73 Ravitzky, Messianism, Zionism, and Jewish Religion Radicalism; Petersburg, The Returns of Zionism.74 Shapira, The Bible and Israeli Identity; Ibid., “Ben Gurion and the Bible,” 645–674.75 Ohana, Political Theologies in the Holy Land, 16.76 Dayan, Living with The Bible.77 As quoted in Sternhell, The Founding Myths of the State of Israel, 57.78 Benvenisti, Sacred Landscape. Ghazi, “The 1948 Israeli-Palestinian War and its Aftermath,” 256–285; Ghazi, “Settler-Colonialism, Memoricide and Indigenous Toponymic Memory,” 3–57.79 See Aran, “From Religious Zionism to Zionist Religion”.80 Friedman, “Israel as a Theological Dilemma”; Sheleg, The New Religious Jews.81 For the justificatory role of religion in Zionism, see Abulof, “The Roles of Religion”.82 Raz- Krakotzkin, “Religion and Nationalism,” 35.83 Some of the major arguments here I have already developed in my paper “Herzl: Sovereignty and The Two Palestines.”84 Herzl, Altneuland, 110.85 Note that he makes no specific reference to “Arabs” here.86 Ibid., 31–35.87 Ibid., 182.88 Ibid., 64, 74, 76.89 See, e.g., Maslaha, “The Concept of Transfer in Zionist Political Thought.”90 On this, see Kotef, The Colonising Self. More generally, see 29–51.91 See Collins, “The Zeal of Phinehas.”92 While many associate political violence with religious fanaticism, others question this immediate association; see Cavanaugh, The Myth of Religious Violence. On the violence of the secular state, see Mahmood, Religious Difference.93 Herzl, The Jewish State, 154.94 Latour, We have Never Been Modern.95 See Saba Mahmood Religious Difference.96 Zreik, “When Does a Settler Become a Native?”Additional informationNotes on contributorsRaef ZreikRaef Zreik was awarded LLB and LLM from the Hebrew University, Jerusalem before completing an LLM from Harvard University and an SJD at Harvard Law School. His main fields of teaching and research include legal and political philosophy, Israel-Palestine, and Zionism.