Religion and the Future of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict

Wahabism is a militant sect of Islam, practiced primarily in Saudi Arabia but also in Taliban controlled Afghanistan and parts of northern Pakistan, which is based on a strict interpretation of the Quran and Shar'ia law. Its adherents often also support the theory of takfir, which calls for the denunciation of non-Muslims and former or non-practicing Muslims as "infidels", subject to targeting for jihad (Commins 3). Perhaps the most famous adherent of Wahabism is Osama bin Laden, who used his beliefs to justify the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon in response to ongoing presence of American troops in Saudi Arabia (Eltahawy 1). Those attacks in turn were used to justify the 2002 invasion of Afghanistan and the expulsion of the Wahabist Taliban influence. The expelled Taliban forces fled to Waziristan, a mountainous region in the north-west of Pakistan along the Afghan border. This fact has made American relations with Pakistan exponentially more complicated (Smith).

Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim state, in turn, has been locked in an arms race with its predominantly Hindu neighbor India since their respective independences in 1947 from the British empire over the region of Kashmir. Unlike the rest of India, Kashmir has a Muslim majority and is hence claimed by Pakistan (Nuclear Files).

To the north, China has since 1951 held the region of Tibet, an ethnically homogenous region just northeast of India, in the Himalayan Mountains. Tibet was, until his exile by the Communist Chinese Government in the 1950s, ruled by the Dalai Lama, who also serves as the spiritual leader to Tibetan Buddhists who remain in Tibet under rule of the secular Chinese government (Kolas).

The separatist movement in Tibet is one of many being discussed since the recent declaration of the region of Kosovo from Serbia. Kosovo is populated primarily by ethnic Albanian Muslim, while the rest of Serbia is predominantly ethnic Serbian Orthodox Christians. Kosovo raises the questions of the validity of separatist movements, and the idea of ethnically homogenous states, which was the justification of the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel within the former Arab state of Palestine and source of the current conflict in that part of the world.

While these conflicts are modern ones, such complex conflicts - driven as much by ethno-religious factors as by utilitarian - have occurred throughout the world's history. The war waged by the United States against Iraq has been compared to the Crusades of the Middle Ages. Some scholars argue that today's wars are not driven by immaterial factors like religion, but by competition for resources and complex interstate politics (Sadowski). However, to dismiss religion is to deny the complexity of global conflicts and to limit the scope through which we view them. The trend of conflict over the next fifty to one hundred years will not only be driven by the traditional reasons of sovereignty, territorial disputes, competition for resources, or differences in ideologies, but also long-standing disputes between ethno-religious groups and newer disparities between religiously motivated leaders and states.

To better understand the role of religion in conflict, some basic definition of terms used within the ongoing discussion is needed. Unless stated otherwise, the definitions to follow are taken from The Global Future by Charles Kegley and Gregory Raymond. Within this discussion, "conflict" refers in a broad sense to both declared war and informal violence, and to both violence involving states and non-governmental parties.

Informal violence refers in large part to terrorism, though random acts of non-terroristic violence are also included within this category. There is no universally accepted definition of terrorism, so hence we shall refer to the definition as provided by Kegley:

Political terrorism is the deliberate use or threat of violence against non-combatants, calculated to instill fear, alarm, and ultimately a feeling of helplessness in an audience beyond the immediate victims... A mixture of drama and dread, political terrorism is not senseless violence; it is a premeditated strategy of extortion that presents people with a danger that seems ubiquitous, unavoidable, and unpredictable (177).

"State" refers to a sovereign country having both a working government and established borders (54). "Nation" refers to a group of people, unbound by territorial restraints, with a shared heritage, language, ethnicity, and/or religion (54). A "Nation-State" is a state which is populated and ruled almost exclusively by a specific "nation" (54). Because Nation-States are difficult to define in a practical sense, any states which may be considered Nation-States will be referred to simply as states. Non-governmental parties are groups and organizations that operate independently of a government, such as Al Queda; not to be confused with Inter-Governmental Organizations, which are comprised of several states and who rely on the participation of governments.

Defining religion is difficult, as is shown by the presence of no less than five definitions in one book, Ethnoreligious Conflict in the Twentieth Century (Fox, 12-13). The overriding theme, however is that religion is a structure through which humans can make sense of their world (14). This discussion will encompass all five of the world's five major religions: Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism; as well as their subsects.

For the purposes of this discussion, it is pertinent to select a limited number of cases through which to view this matter. The most obvious are those which are ongoing, and have been as such for at least a decade, if not longer; and to which no solution is readily available. These conflicts must also have generated enough research so as to allow for a full grasp of the situation. Those conflicts which best fit these criteria are as follows: the jihad of the Wahabi Al Queda against the United States, the arms race between India and Pakistan, and the separatist movement of the Palestinian people from Isreal.

Founded in the 18^th century by an Islamic scholar whose name is now born by the movement, Wahabist states have come in conflict throughout their history with not only other Muslim societies which did not adhere to the strict limitations of the sect, but also non-Muslim states; in particular in the past 25 years, the United States. It should be noted that Wahabist Muslims outside of Saudi Arabia do not refer to themselves as Wahabi, preferring instead 'Unitarian', as Wahabism is considered the Saudi form of the sect, having certain negative connotations within the Muslim community (Blanchard, 3).

Jihad is not necessarily an intrinsic aspect of these sects, having only come to play a large role since the occupation of Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in the early 1980s. The movement which grew out of the Muhajideen resistance to the Soviets was a distinct entity from Saudi Wahabism, its leaders denouncing Saudi Arabia for supporting a Western presence in the Middle East. The most important group to emerge from the Afghan conflict was the Taliban (Blanchard, 4).

Following the September 11^th attacks, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States found that the Taliban, with the support of Al Qaeda, was responsible for the hijackings and subsequent attacks. The motivation for these attacks was a Fatwa, or declaration of Jihad, by Osama bin Laden in 1998 against the United States and its citizens (National Commission). The reaction from the United States was then to invade Afghanistan, which had been under the control of the Taliban since the end of the Afghan civil wars in 1991. The invasion resulted in the expulsion in large part of the Taliban, who subsequently fled to Waziristan, where they remain an influential presence in the tribal region as well as on the Pakistani government (Smith).

Pakistan plays host to another conflict, this one with the state of India over a small region in northwestern India. Kashmir is the only region within predominantly Hindu India with a Muslim population. However, when the British Empire, in freeing its colonies, drew the boundary lines, they saw fit to include this area in India, rather than the Muslim state of Pakistan, to the west.

Both India and Pakistan have laid claim to Kashmir since 1947, when the two states gained their independence. India's claim is primarily one of preserving its sovereignty, while Pakistan's is one of preserving its status as a religious state. Pakistan believes that it has rightful claim to Kashmir because of the religious orientation of its population.

The oldest of the conflicts discussed, the modern Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be traced back to the late 19^th century, with the rise of the Zionist movement. This movement sought to reclaim the biblical land of Israel, then inhabited by over 700,000 Palestinians, mostly farmers. These Palestinians and their ancestors had occupied the land since the expulsion of the Hebrews by the Romans from the region in the second century (Jews, 2).

In 1858, changes in land ownership laws of the Ottoman Empire allowed the Zionists, through the Jewish National Fund, to purchase in the name of the Jewish People tracts of land formerly held by Palestinian farmers from absentee landlords (3). It was the mission of the Zionists to expel the Arab farmers from the region by denying them the right to farm on the land, thus creating a purely Jewish state (3). Even under this plan, though, the Jewish people legally held only about 6% of the land (6). After the declaration of independence in 1948, the Israeli's invaded much of the land allotted to the Palestinians under the British Mandate, and today hold all of what was once Palestine. The Palestinians have been pushed into a small area known as the Gaza Strip, which is nearly bare of resources.

The area known as Palestine was believed to be the Biblical homeland of the Jewish people; or, more specifically, the Hebrew Jews. Jerusalem holds the ruins of Solomon's Temple, and the Western Wall, while the surrounding country holds several other holy sites as well. As well, Jerusalem is the site of the Dome of the Rock, the mosque that holds the point from which the prophet Muhammad was believed to have ascended to heaven. These holy sites are the main source of conflict, on top of the competition for tangible resources, such as fertile farming land. Each group feels they have a deep-rooted claim to the land, leading to intense and violent clashes.

As the world is connected by technology and trade, cultures formerly separated by geography will be forced to work side by side. These cultures, while not inherently violent toward one another, when brought together so suddenly, will spark extremist religious movements within themselves that will come into violent conflict with rival groups. If the pattern of the past 100 years is any indication, the future holds not only no foreseeable end to the existing religious conflicts, but the inevitable development of further conflicts, more violent and irresolvable than their predecessors. Ancient battlefields will be dragged out from history books and be bloodied by modern warfare and modern politics.

Works Cited

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http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Exec.htm

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Smith, Martin. "Return of the Taliban". Frontline 3 Oct, 2006

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/