There is a long, complex and tangled backstory to the present bloody conflict which threatens to escalate into a wider regional war—and religion or, more specifically, religious extremism, looms large in this.

The tragic irony is that both Judaism and Islam trace their roots back to the same source, hence their claim to be (along with Christianity) Abrahamic faiths.

In her history of Islam, internationally renowned religious scholar Karen Armstrong reminds readers that both Judaism and Islam claim Abraham as a spiritual ancestor. And his two sons, Jacob and Ismael, were destined to become the fathers of great nations—the Jews and the Arabs.

Over the course of time, both Judaism and Islam would become inward-looking and exclusionary in character, and hostile to other faith traditions.

The doctrine of the “one true faith” would assume a more central and potent role, and would lead to the Crusades of the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, and the religious wars in Europe after the Reformation in the 16th century.

Within Catholicism, it would see the emergence of the horrors of the Inquisition, which occurred in different phases between the 12th and 15th centuries.

In the Middle East a radical version of Islam known as Wahhabism took form at the end of the 18th century. In the 20th century, it would inspire a whole new generation of Islamic fundamentalists which today would include the Taliban and Hamas.

“Wahhabism is the form of Islam that is still practised today in Saudi Arabia, a puritan religion based on a strictly literal interpretation of scripture and early Islamic tradition,” according to Karen Armstrong.

It is a version of Islam that has been propagated widely by Saudi Arabia, using its petro-dollars to fund madrassas (Islamic schools) in various parts of the globe.

It is also worth noting that a majority of the hijackers responsible for the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington DC came from Saudi Arabia, as did Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the attacks.

Zionism

It was the emergence and growth of Zionism in the 19th century—a religiously inspired political movement for the establishment and support of a national homeland for Jews in Palestine—that would radically alter the religious and political landscape in the Middle East.

Founded by an Austro-Hungarian journalist named Theodor Herzl in 1897, it followed the publication of his book Der Judenstaat (“The Jewish State”) in 1896 in which he envisioned an independent Jewish state during the 20th century.

The movement received a major boost in 1917 during the First World War when the British government announced its support for the establishment of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, then part of the Ottoman Empire.

The statement of support for “Jewish Zionist aspirations” was issued in a letter from the British foreign secretary, Arthur Balfour, to Lord Rothschild, a leader of the British Jewish community, for transmission to the Zionist Federation of Great Britain and Ireland. 

The Balfour Declaration was to prove to be the seed that led to the founding of the Israeli state.

The State of Israel was formally proclaimed on 14 May, 1948—but this was only after violently-implemented ethnic cleansing on a massive scale took place, as a result of which—after the defeat by Zionist forces of Palestinian militias and the armies of several neighbouring Arab states—more than 700,000 Palestinians had by 1949 fled or been expelled from their homes.

After wars in 1967 and 1973, the Israeli policy, backed by successive governments of right and left, of encouraging settlements on occupied Palestinian land (in violation of international law) in the West Bank and East Jerusalem intensified. Under the present far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu—an unreconstructed Zionist with no interest in a two-state solution—the annexation of the West Bank is looming.

In an article in the Financial Times, Sari Nusseibeh, a retired professor of philosophy who held the post of Palestinian Liberation Organisation representative in Jerusalem, said in reference to the Israel-Hamas war: “Our dream of a future for both peoples is the victim of this tragedy”.

Radical Islamism

The military threat from Hamas can be neutralised, though at what human cost can only be guessed at. But you cannot defeat an ideology. Islamism keeps alive the dream of a worldwide Muslim international order forged according to the principles of an Islamic State divinely ordained—a universal caliphate. 

This is the creed of the Muslim Brotherhood founded in 1928, of which Hamas can be considered an offshoot. The founder of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, had been a member of the Brotherhood. 

He founded Hamas in 1987, and the 67-year-old radical was assassinated by an Israeli air strike in Gaza City on March 22, 2014. 

In a widely reported speech to the Bloomberg organisation in London in 2014, the former British prime minister, Tony Blair, said Islamism was based on a politicisation of religion that is fundamentally incompatible with the modern world.

He said radical Islam was an extremist ideology whose adherents were prepared to kill a large number of people because of their beliefs. And he warned that Islamism represented the biggest threat to global security.

“Islamism assumes that there is only one true religion, only one interpretation of that religion, and that this interpretation should prevail and dominate all countries’ politics, government institutions, and social life.” 

But he was careful to stress that this ideology did not represent Islam. “The majority of Muslims do not agree with it. They are repulsed by it.” 

Religious fundamentalism

Religious fundamentalism of all varieties—Christian, Jewish, Islamic—is hostile to religious freedom, a fundamental human right. 

Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion.” 

A succession of Popes throughout the 19th and 20th centuries insisted that the right to freedom of religion didn’t apply to the Catholic Church. 

The concept of religious freedom is one which only found formal acknowledgement and acceptance within the Catholic Church since 1965 when, on the day before it ended, the Second Vatican Council’s Declaration on Religious Liberty was promulgated by Pope Paul VI.

Sooner or later the causes of the conflict that spawned the militants of Hamas and Hezbollah will have to be addressed. 

Sooner or later there must be an independent Palestinian State. But that must come with an acknowledgement of Israel’s right to exist. 

That will require a recognition of religious freedom, new expressions of religious tolerance, and acceptance of the right to self-determination.