MASARYKOVA UNIVERZITA FACULTY OF SOCIAL STUDIES The Role of Religion in the Arab-Israeli Conflict Bachelor' s Thesis XIN RAN XIN Supervisor: Mgr. Vladimir Bizik, Mgr. Deparment of International Relations and European Studies International Relations and European Politics Brno 2021 THE ROLE OF RELIGION IN THE ARAB-ISRAELI CONFLICT MUNI FSS Bibliographie Record Author: Xinran Xin Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University Department of International Relations and Euro• pean Studies Title of Thesis: The Role of Religion in the Arab-Israeli Conflict Degree Programme: International Relations and European Politics Supervisor: Mgr. Vladimir Bizik Academic Year: 2021 Number of Pages: 40 Keywords: Arab-Israeli Conflict, Judaism, Islam, Jewish religi ous parties, Arab parties, Palestinian Organiza tions. Abstract The research paper aims at identifying the role of religion in the Arab- Israeli Conflict, from the perspective of Judaism and Islam tenets, Jewish Religious parties in Israel, Israeli Arab parties, and Palestinian organi• zations. The research is based on a case study and uses qualitative data as a researching method, analyzing academic literature and work. The analysis is conducted in four separate perspectives. The research ends with the conclusion that religion did influence the Arab-Israeli Conflict to a large extent. Statutory Declaration I hereby declare that I have written the submitted [select type of docu• ment] concerning the topic of The Role of Religion in the Arab-Israeli Conflict independently All the sources used for the purpose of finishing this thesis have been adequately referenced and are listed in the Biblio• graphy In Brno 27 December 2020 Xinran Xin Table of Contents List of Terms and Acronyms 1 Introduction 7 2 Research questions and objectives 9 3 Methodology 10 3.1 Scope and limitations 4 Literature Review 12 5 Analysis 14 5.1 General Overview of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 5.2 Tenets of Islam and Judaism 15 5.3Jewish Religious Parties in Israel 20 5.4 Arab Parties in Israel 23 5.5 Palestinian Organizations 26 6 Conclusion 32 Bibliography 34 List of Terms and Acronyms PLO Palestine Liberation Organization Hamas Islamic Resistance Movement Fatah Palestinian National Liberation Movement PIJ Palestinian Islamic Jihad UN United Nations Quran Religious text of Islam Talmud Central text of Judaism WW2 World War Two NRP National Religious Party UTP United Torah Party 1 Introduction The military and political conflicts between Arab countries and Israel have lasted for decades, causing casualties and regional turmoil. The par• ticularity of the conflicts is not only due to its geographic, economic, po• litical, military, but also its history, ethnicity and religion. Therefore, it is especially significant to find out and analyze the underlying reasons to solve the situation in this region. The conflicts and disputes caused by territorial issues between Palestine and Israel are important reasons that can not be ignored and usually recognized by the public. However, whether the religious reason is also an important factor in conflicts is of• ten overlooked. Academic research on related topics is also lacking. When it comes to religious topics, most of the articles are analyzed in conjunction with the news, lacking all aspects of discussion. As the holy places of Judaism and Islam, the Palestine region and Jerusalem contain special religious significance. Whether religion also influences other fields such as politics still needs to be explored. Therefore, the purpose of this article is to analyze the extent to which religion has an impact on Arab-Israeli conflicts, the later political negotiations, and the political arena of Palestine and Israel. Four aspects will be elaborated in the thesis. First, the research focuses on the interpretation of Judaism and Islam for land sovereignly and vio• lence. If the tenets of both religions indicate the attributes of the land or support the use of violence to regain lost land, it will inevitably lead to conflicts and violence to a certain extent. Second, the status and influence of Israeli religious parties in the Israel political arena will be analyzed. Israeli religious parties are practitioners of Judaism. The strength of reli• gious parties will inevitably lead to their influence on Israel's foreign pol• icy towards Palestine and the stagnation of the land for the peace plan. Besides, the influence and status of Israeli Arab parties will also be men• tioned. As pagan parties, the status of Arab parties in the Israeli political arena precisely reflects Israel's attitude towards Islam. The analysis later shows that Arab political parties are struggling, which indicates Israel's distrust and rejection of Islam related factions. Finally, the relation be• tween the Palestinian organizations and Islam will be analyzed. Whether these organizations use Islamic tenets to justify violence is the key to prove the connection between religion and the Arab-Israeli conflict. 7 Research questions and objectives will be proposed firstly, following the Methodology part explaining the data gathering method. Subsequently previous academic literature will be reviewed and drawbacks of them will be introduced. The main analysis including four individual parts to identify religion's influence on Arab-Israeli conflict will be conducted, and the research conclusion will follow up as the end. 8 2 Research questions and objectives The thesis focuses on the following questions: Are tenets of Judaism and Islam justify violence and war, and the belong• ing of Palestinian territory? Do Jewish religious political parties in Israel impede the peace process? Are Arab parties in Israel given special treatments due to the religion? Do the tenets of Islam influence the act of Palestinian organizations? The objectives of the research are: To review existing academic literature and documents related to the above questions. To evaluate to what extent does the religion factor influences both the Palestine and Israel. 9 3 Methodology The research paper uses a case study as the research method, giving a detailed study of the research question on how religion affects Palestine and Israel. The reason why the case study was chosen as the research method is that the case study can focus on the case of the Arab-Israeli conflict specifically. When elaborating the topic with a case study re• search design, qualitative data was collected, focusing on historical and analytical structure. This kind of research method can best analyze the given questions in the paper, and can best evaluate in what field and to what extent does religion affected Palestine and Israel. It allows the re• searcher to explore key meanings of relevant cases. The thesis is mainly based on the existing literature to provide practical evidence and specific data. Primary and secondary sources will be analyzed to achieve a clearer perspective. Qualitative data collection method using books, news articles, reports, government documents, and other literature to collect relevant informa• tion to support subsequent analysis. The literature will be selected accor• ding to the relevance of the topic. Secondary sources are given preference due to their specially and sufficient analysis, for example, academic lite• rature that is recognized by academia. Online academic literature have been gathered from JSTOR, Masaryk University's Online archive, Re• search Gate, Google Scholar, Library Genesis, and Palestine-Israel Journal. The specific primary sources concerning election results are obtained from the official website of the Israeli government such as gov.il, Knes- set.gov.il, the democracy institute. The online database such as Israel/Pa• lestine Center for Research and Information, the Carter Center, Wilson Center also provides valuable information and data. 3.1 Scope and Limitations The purpose of this thesis is to analyze the extent of religion's influence on Palestine and Israel through the existing literature. The influence of Judaism and Islam on Palestine and Israel will be discussed. The other three parts focus on Israeli religious parties, Israeli Arab parties, and Pa• lestine authorities like PLO, Hamas, and PIJ. The expected contribution of this paper would be the filling of vacancy of such topic, attracting more researchers to explore this area. The author admits that this thesis has a certain degree of limitations. Due to the limited longitude and maximum 10 word limit, although Arab countries have largely influenced the Arab-Is• raeli conflicts, they have not been mentioned in this thesis. This thesis without a broader scope only focuses on Palestine and Israel. Moreover, this paper lacks comparative perspectives in examining the influence of religion on the politics in the whole Middle East region. Finally, due to the language proficiency of the author, qualitative data collected in this paper is in English, without Arabic and Hebrew perspectives. 11 4 Literature Review Previously, research on the Arab-Israeli conflict mainly focused on com• bining facts and news to conclude whether religion has an impact on the conflict. For instance, Sabrina analyzed the impact of religious concepts through specific events in the West Bank. (Sabrina, 2002) The same goes for Anshel's research, explaining that the Arab-Israeli conflict is not only a struggle over land but also a struggle based on religion. (Anshel, 2014) Although the discussion of these two researchers involved religion, they did not conduct a multidimensional analysis based on this topic.