When the British and French ruled over this region after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the transition into independent states created religious extremism in order to fill the void of expression that authoritarian rule created. As we see today, that extremism on both the Jewish and the Muslim side is clear and only building in strength. However, the attempt at fixing the major issues is only exacerbating that vacuum and contributing to the build of religious extremism as a means for political outlet.
As the perpetual search for peace continues, mainly between Israel and Palestine, nations involved in putting forth these plans for peace want to take religion out of the picture and ignore it as the central problem. That is the biggest and most ignorant mistake. When you take something away, something must fill that space. Removing religion from the plans for peace, from the ideas of shared dialogue, removes something that will only be filled by more religious extremism.
Michael Melchior states in an opinions piese in the Jerusalem Post that “when we look at the successes and failures in the pursuit of peace in the Middle East, we can see that there has been a failure to integrate religion and interreligious dialogue. The repeated attempts to ignore religion's critical role in the search for peace have been wrong. Today, almost no conflicts exist in which religion does not constitute a central component.”
Although it is a highly political issue of two people wanting the same land, to deny religion’s place in it would be self destructive to each nation if not just plain stupid. “Because religion was excluded from the solution, it became an ever-growing part of the problem. It was filled by extremist elements who tried to turn the conflict into a religious one - a conflict between ‘my God’ and ‘your God’ where there can be no compromise and no solution,” said Melchior.
This brings us back to the concept that Juan Cole discusses in the introduction to his book, Engaging the Muslim World. There is this feeling set in the hearts of Israelis and Palestinians (especially in the context of extremists) as though it is set in stone: “us and them,” a mental state of me against you. With the way the media constructs images, especially in the United States, we are often led to believe that the extreme ones are the Muslims because that is what we see—all day, everyday. Without denying the existence of Muslim extremists, I bring to the light that the “us vs. them,” or in the context of religion as I have discussed it, “my God” and “your God,” Israeli extremism is just as crucial.
According to a New York Times news story by Ethan Bronner, after the withdrawal of Jews from Gaza and four West Bank settlements, a group of religious Jews that believe they have a divine right to this land, illegally settled in these abandoned regions. Behind their slogan, “Never forgive! Never forget,” many of them are armed, refusing to leave that land and furious about Israel’s withdrawal from the region in 2005. The founder of Havat Gilad, the name of this settlement, vows that “they’ll have to kill us to get us out of here.” The settlement claims that their nation has forgotten the drive for Zionism altogether and that they must carry that goal themselves.
Aside from the plethora of violent acts against Palestinians including cutting off all major supplies for weeks, if not months, at a time, this religious extremism, just as Islamic extremism, creates a religious political outlet. It also creates clear resistance to any all peace processes because those processes choose to not address the crucial nature religion has in the entire ordeal.
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