What is the link between religion and the war in Palestine?

Answer 1

Issues with the term "War in Palestine"

It is unclear what the "War in Palestine" specifically refers to for two major reasons. There have been numerous regional wars and the term "Palestine" is nebulous at best. "Palestine" is typically interpreted one of two ways. The first way is to refer to all of the land in the British Mandate of Palestine (Palestine 1) which includes the Modern State of Israel (except for the Golan Heights), the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The second way is to refer to exclusively those territories which the Palestinian Authority claims will serve as a basis for a future Palestinian State (Palestine 2): the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Understandably, it changes the argument fundamentally if 78% of the territory in question is exempted from the discussion.

Two major "Wars in Palestine"

Assuming for the moment, that the word "Palestine" refers to Palestine 1 (which includes all of Palestine 2) and that "War in Palestine" refers to any war that occurred within Palestine 1, the situation marginally improves. There are two main categories of conflict in Palestine 1.

• There is the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, which began in the 1920s, but became much more widespread in 1947 with the Jewish-Arab Engagement and the Arab-Israeli War of 1948-9. Approximately 13,000 Palestinians have died in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
• There is the Palestinian Civil War, which began in 2006 between the militant wings of Hamas and Fatah, but most violence took place in 2007 with approximately 600-1000 deaths.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Religion

In the case of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, there is certainly an important role for religion. On the Israeli side, Judaism reinforces the sacred-nature of the land of Palestine 1 and also informs many of the values of Israeli society. Many Israeli settlers in the West Bank (part of Palestine 1&2) are motivated by Jewish religious concerns that Jewish holy places remain in Jewish hands. On the Palestinian side, Islam reinforces the sacred nature of the city of Jerusalem. Additionally, many Imams both in Palestine 2 support a fundamentalist version of Islam which promotes the use of suicide bombers and rockets to "liberate" Palestine. However, even though religion certainly helps to create conflict, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is more accurately seen as an ethnic conflict where the religions are used as ethnic identifiers. This is similar to the former Yugoslav Conflicts or the Northern Ireland Conflict. The actual tenets of the religions had less to do with the war than people using their religions as an ethnicity to unify a disparate set of people.

Palestinian Civil War and Religion

In the case of the Palestinian Civil War, there is a weaker role for religion. Hamas and Fatah, the two Palestinian parties competing for control have two fundamentally different views of how a Palestinian State should be won and governed. Fatah believes in negotiation with Israel to achieve a long-term peaceful two-state solution and foresees Palestine as a Secular Arab State in the vein of Nasserist Egypt. Hamas rejects any and all forms of negotiation with Israel and sees the only end of conflict in achieving a one-state Palestinian Solution. It also foresees Palestine as an Islamist State, a state ruled using Islamic Shari'a Law as the basis of governance construed rather similarly to how Iran construes Shari'a. In this case too, the role of religion is subservient to the differing political views of the different political parties and is merely an extension of the rivalry between the groups. It was Fatah's refusal to allow for a peaceful transfer of authority to Hamas following the election in 2006 that sparked the violence. Prior to this, the groups attacked one-another, but not in any serious way.