A Study On The Politics-Religion Relations In Contemporary Israel

The issue of the politics-religion relations is of vital practical and theoretical importance to the administrative system of a state and the way of existence for religion. This thesis deals with the politics-religion relations in Israel as the object for study. Through the lens of theoretical frameworks of types and level of politics-religion relations, the thesis takes into consideration of background of the making of Israel after the diaspora of Jews around the world for nearly2000years, with the discussion of three principle conflicts in Israel, i.e. of lefts and rights, of religious and secular and of ethnic groups. In the discourse of modernism and secularization, the thesis expounds on the historic development of the politics-religion relations from its beginning even unto today’s trend toward strained relations. Emphasizing both historic and present situations, the thesis also discusses elements, actors, motivations and impacts of the politics-religion relations in Israel. The author analyzes many important texts and numerous cases in the hope of providing a meaningful research paper for understanding the origin and development of the politics-religion relations in Israel.When doing research on the politics-religion relations in Israel, the first thing needs to be done is to make a breakthrough on the paradigm that simply put the politics-religion relations into two categories:"Politics-religion as One","Politics-religion as Completely Separated". One may consider politics on three levels, political power, political ideology and political culture and consider religions’impacts on these three levels:in Israel, firstly, religious forces actively engage in political activities and take advantage of political power to fulfill their own wishes and interests; secondly, Judaism has close relations to the state ideology-Zionism and becomes part of the state ideology; thirdly, the political culture of Israel shows considerable tolerance for religious forces. Therefore, the type of the politics-religion relations belongs to the category of "State Religion Politics" or "Religion-aided Politics", meaning the type of the politics-religion relations in Israel belongs neither to categories of "Politics-religion as One","Politics-religion as Completely Separated" However, there is the great influence of Judaism in Israel. The thesis also discusses the "politics" and "religion" in Israel, arguing whether Judaism is a kind of religion and its difference against religion in the western academic discourse. After that, the thesis discussed important actors in the politics-religion relations-religious forces and their parties, arguing that religious forces, though complex, could be simply be divided into two groups:Orthodox group and Modern Orthodox group, a more realistic and practical classification.As State Religion, the way of existence of Judaism in Israel has lots to do with the "status quo" of the politics-religion relations."Status quo" is a kind of systematic arrangements for Judaism to enjoy certain degree of autonomy and independent jurisdiction, which had its origins from Ottoman Empire and Mandate periods, and was partly retained after the establishment of the State of Israel. In the early period of the State of Israel, religious forces tried to keep status quo intact, yet secular forces, though partly agreed with it, made changes or modifications to the status quo. A typical example is the Status Quo Agreement, though not status quo it self and had little substantial meanings, even religious forces dissatisfied with it, Agreement set the basic tone for dealing with the politics-religion relations-through consociationalsm. Secular and religious forces used ways of negotiations and compromises to solve all kinds of problems, i.e. drafting the Constitution,"Who is a Jew?", religious education and observant Jews serving the army. Under the leadership of Mapai and later Israel Labor Party, all sorts of conflicts were avoided or neutralized, the politics-religion relations came into a stable period.Party politics plays an important role in Israel politics, it also plays a central role in the politics-religion relations. One obvious characteristics of the politics-religion relations in Israel is that religious parties actively engage in political affairs, and mobilize state resources to support religious education and religious institutes. Before1977, religious parties were relative weak and could hardly influence the State and the society. However, after rehabilitation for about30years, religious parties in silence suddenly reappeared in the public. They held high the Judaism laws halacha to criticize Rabin Administration for not observing Sabbath and lead to its collapse. A political earthquake in1977finally occurred, Left Labor Party stepped down and Right Likud got the power, the power shift was with drastic effects. With the religious parties joining the Likud cabinet, the secular world realized that religious forces didn’t fade away but rise up. Soon, a Sephardic party-SHAS appeared in Israel politics and made great success in political performance proving a strong upsurge of religious forces and de-marginalization efforts of Sephardic or Mizrachi Jews. Then, a secular majority feel a stronger religious existence and its impacts on their daily life.More importantly, as early as Six-Day War (1967) and Yom Kippur War (1973), religious Zionism was strengthened, as a result a new ideology-Neo-Zionism came into being."Great Israel" and Messianism helped accelerate Jewish settlement in West Bank and Gaza, detrimental to the solving of Palestine-Israel conflicts. What’s worse, Jewish extremism spread rapidly. Jewish extremists attacked Arabs or even Jews with violence in the name of Judaism, causing adverse impact to the politics-religion relations. In1995, former PM Itzhak Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish extremist, symbolizing an object shift of Jewish extremism to state leaders or even the State of Israel itself. Jewish extremism becomes one the most recent and vivid threats in Israel.After1977, rotational rulings of Likud and Labor party gives an end to the monopoly of Labor party, with its policy and tolerance towards the religious parites, the religious parties rise, Judaism waves more influence, Jewish extremism spreads widely, the politics-religion relations in Israel face severe challenges. Although the status quo doesn’t change completely, a stable status comes into a period full of tensions. Especially, the most recent20th Knesset election on March17,2015turned out that Likud won the power again,, winning30seats. Therefore the right-turn trend of politics face many uncertainties.With the rise of tentions in the politics-religion relations, secular and religious conflicts toughen. The influence of Judaism on public life is omnipresent. Judaism has monopoly powers on way of life and personal rights, causing secular majority great inconvenience. However, Israel is still a stable and unified society, the politics-religion relations can be kept in stable manners. All these have much to do with the secularization of Israel. Religious forces do all their best to fight against secular behaviors. Secular majority’s efforts through party politics to claim their rights live on their own will failed because of the thwarting action by religious forces. However, secularization can’t be prevented, a booming market economy makes a spontaneous secularization possible and secular Jews could find alternative ways of life outside religious ways of life. Finally, secularization eases many tensions in the politics-religion relations, making the status quo much easier to keep.The issue of the politics-religion relations in Israel can be concluded as what kind of state will Israel be. The thesis examines texts by two important Jewish figures in Jewish history, Josephus and Herzl, pointing out that Israel is in the situation between theocracy and secular state. The thesis tries to analyze Israel’s possibility of becoming these two kinds of states. Judging from the recent situations, Israel can hardly become any one of these states, instead, Israel will most probably keep its status quo of the politics-religion relations and stay between theocracy and secular state.The politics-religion relations in Israel is changing all the time, and is greatly influenced by external factors, i.e. security in the Middle East, Palestine-Israel conflicts, also is influenced by internal factors, i.e., complex political situation and conflicts in ethnic groups. Problems, such as unconditional compromise to religious forces by secular forces, even tolerance for Jewish Judaism; avoiding social responsibilities by religious forces through dodging military services, studying torah as professions all day long and force the whole society behave only according to halacha, all these problems will trouble the politics-religion relations continuously and cause conflicts in the future, even violence. The politics-religion relations in Israel will continue to face challenges.