Zionism and the Dilemma of Legitimizing Settler Colonialism: Religious Discourse as a Response to the Palestinian Resistance

Volume 10|Issue 38| Autumn 2021 |Articles

Abstract

This study examines how nationalism, religious claims, and settler colonialism enmesh within Zionism, focusing on the main role played by this interaction in masking settler colonialism as an appropriate analytical framework for studying the Palestinian–Zionist conflict. Three main propositions are made: First, that Jewish national claims in Palestine rely on religious claims in order to obscure the reality of the Zionist project as settler colonial in essence. Second, that a main reason for the penetration of religion into the Israeli public sphere and the increasing dependence of "secular" Zionism on religious claims is the need for legitimacy in the face of the consistent Palestinian resistance. Third, that while separation of state and religion was possible in other settler colonial contexts, the transition to secularism is unachievable in Zionism and can only emerge outside it.

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​Professor of International Affairs and Conflict Studies and Director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Boston, USA.

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