Religion is fundamental to Israeli identity politics and cannot be separated from the country’s geography or society, argues Tove Norlen. This, however, does not translate into uniform thinking when it comes to defining Israel’s security dilemmas.
Prepared by: ISN staff
ISN: Is identity politics in Israel grounded in religion, culture, geography, society, or a mix of these and other factors?
Tove Norlen: While the short answer to this question is “all of the above and more,” it is indeed the fascinating mix of all of these elements melded together that make Israeli identity politics so difficult to understand. However, it could be argued that it is not just a mixture of these elements that create Israeli identity, but rather the fact that neither of those elements can be fully understood without the other. The reason for this is primarily that Israeli society (at least 80% of it) is defined by Judaism, which is a religion that—contrary to many others—comprises both faith and nationality. What some people do not realize however is that the Jewish religion cannot be separated from geography and society.
In order to explain this one needs to look a bit into history. While many Jewish groups living in the diaspora before 1948 had to some extent “de-coupled” their faith from the religious imperative to live in the ancient Jewish homeland (referred to as the Land of Israel), Judaism cannot fully exist as a religion without this territorial link. While there is disagreement even between various religious groupings within Judaism about the imperative to actually settle in modern-day Israel, practically no Jew would disagree about the importance of that territory for their spiritual and national identity. The Biblical covenant that provides the foundation for modern day secular Israeli identity is a three-part pact between the people, the creator and the territory, neither of which can function fully without the other two.
It is well known that many of the Zionist founders of Israel were not religious and that, to some extent, their aim was to “liberate” the Jewish people from their traditional “bonds” to religion by creating a state where identity could be realized through nationalist and civic means. However, the early Zionists also realized that in order to compel Jews to come to Palestine from all corners of the world, they needed a common national narrative. That narrative was based on religious history. Thus, while the foundational narrative enabled the full participation of both secular and religious Jews in the socialization process of the new state, it also required compromises to the religious when it came to both politics and society, giving them both autonomy and power over political life to the extent not commonly seen in other democracies. We see this especially in the areas of education and family law and the fact that there is no constitution, but also with respect to the Jewish territorial identity and the relationship to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. As the religious sectors of the population have grown demographically in recent decades you see increased tension between the secular and religious when it comes to the compromises that were accepted in the past; a good example being the exemption of Ultra-Orthodox Jews from army service, which is presently under intense “re-negotiation.”
It should also be mentioned that this is the case despite the fact that 20% of Israelis are not Jewish. While Israeli Arabs are participants in Israeli society with equal rights as citizens (and many have even culturally integrated in Israel), they do not shape Israeli identity politics because their religious and territorial history is largely at odds with that of Jewish Israelis.
Which of these factors are the dominant, most influential ones when it comes to Israeli politics in general?
On the one hand, the answer depends on whether you are asking about domestic or foreign policy, but on the other hand, as Kissinger once remarked, Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic policy. In other words, because much of Israel’s politics is focused on how to negotiate between its various societal groups, Israel’s foreign policies are merely a reflection of that bargaining process and a product of the “lowest common denominator.”
However, despite this, all Israelis are strongly united in their common “Israeliness.” 70% of all Jewish Israelis were born in Israel, half of them being second generation or more. While they may disagree on some of the most mundane aspects of life to the extent that they don’t even recognize each other as fellow Jews, they face a common future that is partly based (from the Israeli perspective) on overcoming the threats coming from their immediate neighborhood. Regardless of their religious and political persuasion, all Israelis have to stand in line for gas masks and run for bomb shelters when rockets start flying from Gaza or Southern Lebanon, and at the end of the day, they are all dependent on their government and military for protection.
It cannot be denied that the collective memories of the Holocaust and past persecution also shape Israeli politics, especially with regard to policies towards their neighbor states and the Palestinians. The present Netanyahu government has been accused of having a siege mentality that has worsened Israel’s image in the world and further destroyed Israel’s chances of having a positive effect on the emerging Middle Eastern populist regimes. However, one also has to remember that Israel has been attacked repeatedly in the past so the existential threat—especially from Iran—is considered very real and cannot be ignored.
Has this always been the case or how has Israel’s identity politics evolved over time?
The period 1948-1967 was in some ways Israel’s “honey moon” during which, despite outside threats, it was able to focus inward on building the state and on nationalizing its citizens. The wars of 1967 and 1973 ended whatever hopes Israelis had in enticing the neighboring Arab states to normalize relations and also, due to the territorial conquest of the West Bank (and Gaza), changed the focus of Israeli identity politics.
As long as Israel stayed within the 1967 borders, the negotiation around Israeli identity politics mainly concerned social and family life, but once Israel found itself in possession of the West Bank (the biblical areas of Judea and Samaria), the focus for the religious-nationalist groups in Israel became almost entirely geographic. The 1967 war galvanized these groups, and subsequent political developments (including the elections of 1977 that brought Menachim Begin to power) moved politics further to the right and energized the settler movement.
Demographic developments also strengthen this shift. Perhaps even more than the changing Arab-Israeli demographic ratio, the internal demographic shift within Israeli Jewish society has in some ways been more influential in the evolution of Israeli identity politics. While secular Israeli society is becoming even more liberal and tolerant than some of the most liberal societies in the Western world, the secular community is shrinking and now consists of about 40-50% of Jewish Israelis. Both the national religious and Ultra-Orthodox sectors are growing rapidly, decisively changing the balance in the religious-secular dialogue on important questions, including the Torah-state relationship and how Israel should relate to the territories captured in 1967. This can be seen on the Israeli street where in some areas seculars have almost completely disappeared, but also in public debate, where hard-line ideas and solutions for the Israeli-Palestinian problem that were previously considered unacceptable are now being widely discussed.
The problem for Israeli identity politics is that it needs to mediate between the extreme, which again takes us back to the lowest common denominator argument. Most Israeli governments—and the current one in particular—are dependent on right-wing and national religious voters to stay in power and therefore tread a thin line in trying not to upset those who prioritize religious values before secular politics.
How has this process impacted on how Israelis see and define their security dilemmas?
The Yom Kippur war in 1973 became the permanent reminder that Israel will never be secure in its neighborhood and that it ultimately has to prioritize its own security at all times. Trust is not an option. The current turmoil in the Middle East and the Iranian threat has brought back this mind-set. Thus, while the rest of the world finds it difficult to take Iranian threats to “drive Israel into the Sea” seriously, Israeli leaders have to because even if such a scenario were unlikely, they cannot afford to take any chances.
While the Arab Spring was as much of a surprise to Israel as to the rest of the world, in Israel it was greeted with a degree of fear and trepidation. Israelis knew that even the best case scenario—that the Arab states transition peacefully into democratic regimes—would not be very favourable to Israel since those regimes (as Egypt has shown) would include Islamic elements that would most likely reflect the popular resentment felt towards Israel on the Arab street. However, Israel also feared the “worse-case” scenario—that the uprisings would lead to regime collapse and disintegration and that this would leave a power vacuum that terrorists could take advantage of.
But not all Israelis are pessimistic about the changing security situation: how Israelis perceive their security dilemma differs roughly along the lines of their political persuasion. Those who focus on “fear” as the most secure policy will argue that Israel cannot take any chances and that at best, Muslim democratic governments will respect previous agreements. The threat of disintegration of Syria and lawlessness in the Sinai invites fear that more sophisticated weapons will come into the hands of terrorists. Under such conditions of uncertainty, Israel has to focus on its own defence and cannot afford to offer any concessions to the Palestinians, especially as Hamas and Fatah have been moving closer together.
Those who see the democratic drive in the Arab world as a step forward argue that engaging wisely would allow Israel the opportunity to change its image with the Arab masses. The best way to show the secular democratic movements support, they argue, would be to make substantial progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. By not doing so, they fear, Israel is guaranteeing that the popularly-led regimes that may follow will be more hostile to Israel than the previous dictators. Israel should, therefore, more actively court the moderate regimes in the neighborhood, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as offer quiet support to the Syrian opposition.
The biggest question at the moment is obviously how Israel should respond to the Iranian threat; whether it could live with an Iranian nuclear bomb that would not only directly threaten Israel’s security, but also substantially alter the regional balance of power. But that topic has to be left for a different analysis.
Tove Norlen is a TAPIR visiting fellow at the Center for Security Studies at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, working on issues relating to international security, Middle East/Israel, conflict management and US foreign policy. She has a Ph.D. in international relations and conflict management from John Hopkins University School of International Studies in Washington DC.
Tove Norlen: While the short answer to this question is “all of the above and more,” it is indeed the fascinating mix of all of these elements melded together that make Israeli identity politics so difficult to understand. However, it could be argued that it is not just a mixture of these elements that create Israeli identity, but rather the fact that neither of those elements can be fully understood without the other. The reason for this is primarily that Israeli society (at least 80% of it) is defined by Judaism, which is a religion that—contrary to many others—comprises both faith and nationality. What some people do not realize however is that the Jewish religion cannot be separated from geography and society.
In order to explain this one needs to look a bit into history. While many Jewish groups living in the diaspora before 1948 had to some extent “de-coupled” their faith from the religious imperative to live in the ancient Jewish homeland (referred to as the Land of Israel), Judaism cannot fully exist as a religion without this territorial link. While there is disagreement even between various religious groupings within Judaism about the imperative to actually settle in modern-day Israel, practically no Jew would disagree about the importance of that territory for their spiritual and national identity. The Biblical covenant that provides the foundation for modern day secular Israeli identity is a three-part pact between the people, the creator and the territory, neither of which can function fully without the other two.
It is well known that many of the Zionist founders of Israel were not religious and that, to some extent, their aim was to “liberate” the Jewish people from their traditional “bonds” to religion by creating a state where identity could be realized through nationalist and civic means. However, the early Zionists also realized that in order to compel Jews to come to Palestine from all corners of the world, they needed a common national narrative. That narrative was based on religious history. Thus, while the foundational narrative enabled the full participation of both secular and religious Jews in the socialization process of the new state, it also required compromises to the religious when it came to both politics and society, giving them both autonomy and power over political life to the extent not commonly seen in other democracies. We see this especially in the areas of education and family law and the fact that there is no constitution, but also with respect to the Jewish territorial identity and the relationship to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank. As the religious sectors of the population have grown demographically in recent decades you see increased tension between the secular and religious when it comes to the compromises that were accepted in the past; a good example being the exemption of Ultra-Orthodox Jews from army service, which is presently under intense “re-negotiation.”
It should also be mentioned that this is the case despite the fact that 20% of Israelis are not Jewish. While Israeli Arabs are participants in Israeli society with equal rights as citizens (and many have even culturally integrated in Israel), they do not shape Israeli identity politics because their religious and territorial history is largely at odds with that of Jewish Israelis.
Which of these factors are the dominant, most influential ones when it comes to Israeli politics in general?
On the one hand, the answer depends on whether you are asking about domestic or foreign policy, but on the other hand, as Kissinger once remarked, Israel has no foreign policy, only domestic policy. In other words, because much of Israel’s politics is focused on how to negotiate between its various societal groups, Israel’s foreign policies are merely a reflection of that bargaining process and a product of the “lowest common denominator.”
However, despite this, all Israelis are strongly united in their common “Israeliness.” 70% of all Jewish Israelis were born in Israel, half of them being second generation or more. While they may disagree on some of the most mundane aspects of life to the extent that they don’t even recognize each other as fellow Jews, they face a common future that is partly based (from the Israeli perspective) on overcoming the threats coming from their immediate neighborhood. Regardless of their religious and political persuasion, all Israelis have to stand in line for gas masks and run for bomb shelters when rockets start flying from Gaza or Southern Lebanon, and at the end of the day, they are all dependent on their government and military for protection.
It cannot be denied that the collective memories of the Holocaust and past persecution also shape Israeli politics, especially with regard to policies towards their neighbor states and the Palestinians. The present Netanyahu government has been accused of having a siege mentality that has worsened Israel’s image in the world and further destroyed Israel’s chances of having a positive effect on the emerging Middle Eastern populist regimes. However, one also has to remember that Israel has been attacked repeatedly in the past so the existential threat—especially from Iran—is considered very real and cannot be ignored.
Has this always been the case or how has Israel’s identity politics evolved over time?
The period 1948-1967 was in some ways Israel’s “honey moon” during which, despite outside threats, it was able to focus inward on building the state and on nationalizing its citizens. The wars of 1967 and 1973 ended whatever hopes Israelis had in enticing the neighboring Arab states to normalize relations and also, due to the territorial conquest of the West Bank (and Gaza), changed the focus of Israeli identity politics.
As long as Israel stayed within the 1967 borders, the negotiation around Israeli identity politics mainly concerned social and family life, but once Israel found itself in possession of the West Bank (the biblical areas of Judea and Samaria), the focus for the religious-nationalist groups in Israel became almost entirely geographic. The 1967 war galvanized these groups, and subsequent political developments (including the elections of 1977 that brought Menachim Begin to power) moved politics further to the right and energized the settler movement.
Demographic developments also strengthen this shift. Perhaps even more than the changing Arab-Israeli demographic ratio, the internal demographic shift within Israeli Jewish society has in some ways been more influential in the evolution of Israeli identity politics. While secular Israeli society is becoming even more liberal and tolerant than some of the most liberal societies in the Western world, the secular community is shrinking and now consists of about 40-50% of Jewish Israelis. Both the national religious and Ultra-Orthodox sectors are growing rapidly, decisively changing the balance in the religious-secular dialogue on important questions, including the Torah-state relationship and how Israel should relate to the territories captured in 1967. This can be seen on the Israeli street where in some areas seculars have almost completely disappeared, but also in public debate, where hard-line ideas and solutions for the Israeli-Palestinian problem that were previously considered unacceptable are now being widely discussed.
The problem for Israeli identity politics is that it needs to mediate between the extreme, which again takes us back to the lowest common denominator argument. Most Israeli governments—and the current one in particular—are dependent on right-wing and national religious voters to stay in power and therefore tread a thin line in trying not to upset those who prioritize religious values before secular politics.
How has this process impacted on how Israelis see and define their security dilemmas?
The Yom Kippur war in 1973 became the permanent reminder that Israel will never be secure in its neighborhood and that it ultimately has to prioritize its own security at all times. Trust is not an option. The current turmoil in the Middle East and the Iranian threat has brought back this mind-set. Thus, while the rest of the world finds it difficult to take Iranian threats to “drive Israel into the Sea” seriously, Israeli leaders have to because even if such a scenario were unlikely, they cannot afford to take any chances.
While the Arab Spring was as much of a surprise to Israel as to the rest of the world, in Israel it was greeted with a degree of fear and trepidation. Israelis knew that even the best case scenario—that the Arab states transition peacefully into democratic regimes—would not be very favourable to Israel since those regimes (as Egypt has shown) would include Islamic elements that would most likely reflect the popular resentment felt towards Israel on the Arab street. However, Israel also feared the “worse-case” scenario—that the uprisings would lead to regime collapse and disintegration and that this would leave a power vacuum that terrorists could take advantage of.
But not all Israelis are pessimistic about the changing security situation: how Israelis perceive their security dilemma differs roughly along the lines of their political persuasion. Those who focus on “fear” as the most secure policy will argue that Israel cannot take any chances and that at best, Muslim democratic governments will respect previous agreements. The threat of disintegration of Syria and lawlessness in the Sinai invites fear that more sophisticated weapons will come into the hands of terrorists. Under such conditions of uncertainty, Israel has to focus on its own defence and cannot afford to offer any concessions to the Palestinians, especially as Hamas and Fatah have been moving closer together.
Those who see the democratic drive in the Arab world as a step forward argue that engaging wisely would allow Israel the opportunity to change its image with the Arab masses. The best way to show the secular democratic movements support, they argue, would be to make substantial progress in the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. By not doing so, they fear, Israel is guaranteeing that the popularly-led regimes that may follow will be more hostile to Israel than the previous dictators. Israel should, therefore, more actively court the moderate regimes in the neighborhood, including Saudi Arabia and Turkey, as well as offer quiet support to the Syrian opposition.
The biggest question at the moment is obviously how Israel should respond to the Iranian threat; whether it could live with an Iranian nuclear bomb that would not only directly threaten Israel’s security, but also substantially alter the regional balance of power. But that topic has to be left for a different analysis.
Tove Norlen is a TAPIR visiting fellow at the Center for Security Studies at the ETH in Zurich, Switzerland, working on issues relating to international security, Middle East/Israel, conflict management and US foreign policy. She has a Ph.D. in international relations and conflict management from John Hopkins University School of International Studies in Washington DC.
