What Is The Difference Between Judaism And Zionism The Impact Of Religion On Political Decision Making In The Israeli Palestinian Conflict

Until the present day, wide-spread confusion regarding the meaning of the terms Judaism and Zionism persists both inside and outside Israel. The popular opinion is that the terms are synonyms. But this implies the false assumption that anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism. As Ruth Esther Schwarz shows the Israeli right-wing regime uses this dangerous shortcut in order to justify its ongoing colonization of Palestine. Based on the work of Israel’s New Historians, Schwarz’s book aims at deconstructing the mainstream mindset concerning Judaism and Zionism. Therefore, she analyses the nature of the principal ideological streams and their complex interconnections before and after 1948. She focusses on orthodox Judaism, religious Zionism, Jewish radical messianism, Jewish fundamentalism, the ideological change of traditional Zionism and, last but not least, the role of Christian Zionism in the United States. Keywords: - Judaism; - Zionism; - Israeli-Palestinian conflict; - religious Zionism; - nationalism; - fundamentalism

"This Very Short Introduction discloses a history of Zionism from the origins of modern Jewish nationalism in the 1870's to the present. Michael Stanislawski provides a lucid and detached analysis of Zionism, focusing on its internal intellectual and ideological developments and divides"--

Foreword / David Smock -- Introduction -- Religion : a blessing or a curse? -- After the collapse of Oslo -- The Alexandria Summit and its aftermath -- Grassroots interreligious dialogues -- Educating the educators -- Other Muslim voices for interreligious peacebuilding -- Symbolic ritual as a mode of peacemaking -- Active solidarity : rabbis for human rights -- From personal grief to collective compassion -- Journeys of personal transformation -- Practical recommendations -- Appendices.

After half a century of occupation and tremendous costs of the conflict, Israel is still struggling with the idea of a Palestinian state in what is often perceived as the Biblical Eretz Israel. Mapping Zionism, enemy images, peace and war policies, as well as democracy within the Jewish State, the present study offers original insights into Israel’s role in this conflict. By analyzing Israeli history, politics and security-oriented political culture as it has been evolving from 1948 on, this book reveals the ideological and political structures of a Zionist-oriented state and society. In doing so, it uncovers the abyss between the Zionist vision of Eretz Israel on the one hand and the aspiration to achieve normalization, peace and security on the other. In view of this conflict-laden bi-national reality, the Palestinian question is identified as the Achilles‘ heel of Jewish statehood in the Land of Israel. Thus, Zionist Israel and the Question of Palestine provides a fresh, innovative, critical and yet accessible perspective on one of the most controversial issues in contemporary history.

In Christian Zionism in the Twenty-First Century authors Motti Inbari and Kirill Bumin draw on three original surveys conducted in 2018, 2020, and 2021 to explore the religious beliefs and foreign policy attitudes of evangelical and born-again Christians in the United States. They analyze the views of ordinary churchgoers and evangelical pastors to understand the religious, social, and political factors that lead the members of this religious community to support the State of Israel in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Through rigorous quantitative analyses and careful textual study of ordinary evangelicals' written comments, Inbari and Bumin aim to rectify misconceptions about who evangelical and born-again Christians are, about their sympathies toward Israel, Jewish people, and Palestinians, and about the sources of their foreign policy attitudes toward the conflict. Inbari and Bumin demonstrate that a generational divide is emerging within the evangelical community, one that substantially impacts evangelicals' attitudes toward Israel. They also show that frequent church attendance and certain theological beliefs have a profound impact on the evangelicals' preference of Israel over the Palestinians. Throughout, the authors aim to add nuance to the discussion, showing that contemporary evangelical and born-again Christians' attitudes are much more diverse than many portrayals suggest.

He then describes the various streams of Zionist thought and how they were transmogrified by events and individuals, and concludes by examining both Zionism's connection with a secular Jewish identity and the nature of the Jewish claim to Eretz Israel.

What role have Zionism and Christian Zionism played in shaping attitudes and driving historical development in the Middle East? How do Christians, Jews, and Muslims understand the competing claims to the land of Palestine and Israel? What steps can be taken to bring peace, reconciliation, and justice to the homeland that Palestinians and Israelis share? This study guide along with the accompanying DVD examines the role of Jewish and Christian forms of Zionism in providing theological and ideological "cover" for the takeover of Palestinian land and the domination and dispossession of the Palestinian people over the past 125 years. The goal of the resource is to help religious groups understand and engage in the theological and ethical struggle for genuine and lasting peace in the Middle East.

What does the evangelical church in Palestine think about the land, the end times, the Holocaust, peace in the Middle East, loving enemies, Christian Zionism, the State of Israel, and the possibilities of a Palestinian state? For the first time ever, Palestinian evangelicals along with evangelicals from the United States and Europe have converged to explore these and other crucial topics. Although Jews, Muslims, and Christians from a variety of traditions have participated in discussions and work regarding Israel and Palestine, this book presents theological, biblical, and political perspectives and arguments from Palestinian evangelicals who are praying, hoping, and working for a just peace for both Israelis and Palestinians.

In December 2008, Israel's attack on Gaza provoked international condemnation. The killing of civilians anguished even many supporters of Israel, who found it morally indefensible. In this poignant, powerful volume, the influential Jewish thinker and critic Marc H. Ellis takes on the hard moral questions about Jewish support for the state of Israel. Reviewing the historical record of the past fifty years and envisioning the prospects for a just and lasting peace, Ellis makes an unyielding case based on central prophetic Jewish values that the present policies of the Israeli state cannot reasonably be defended. Ellis examines how Holocaust theology replaced God with Israel and gutted the prophetic moral core of Judaism as a religion. The future not only of Judaism but of Israel itself, he argues, hinges on a fundamental shift in Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and on a completely new direction in the peace process. At a time when critics of Israel are silenced with the charge of anti-Semitism, Ellis offers a prophetic Jewish alternative to the blind acceptance of Israeli policies, demonstrating ''great courage, integrity, and insight,'' according to Noam Chomsky. Sure to be the subject of fervent debate, Judaism Does Not Equal Israel marks a major effort by a leading American Jewish thinker to make the case that questioning current Israeli policies is fully consonant with being a faithful Jew. In his Jewish liberation theology, Ellis offers a way to assure the global survival of Judaism by moving beyond the stalemate of a two-state solution.