Introduction: The Centrality of Weak Messianism to the Achievement of Middle East Peace

On November 18–20, 2018, Annabel Herzog (Professor of Political Science at the University of Haifa in Israel) and I (Professor of Religion and Political Science at Temple University) organized a conference at Haifa, titled “Asymmetry, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and Abrahamic Peace.” The two issues of the Journal of Ecumenical Studies of which I am guest editor constitute the papers of the conference, which was multinational and multidimensional in scope. It brought together Israeli, Palestinian, American, and European scholars to discuss the origins, sources, and evolution of the conflict, its current status, and possible modes of resolution. The disciplinary perspectives that are reflected in these essays range from theology to philosophy, political science, sociology, and history. The past, present, and future of the conflict (including possible modes of resolution) remain the ongoing focus of most of the contributors, even when their essays seek to develop in depth only one of the perspectives I have outlined.

There is a virtual consensus among the authors that both Jewish and Islamic fundamentalism are a major factor in instigating the conflict and keeping it alive for such a long period of time. In this introduction, I would like to address in short compass the phenomenon of Jewish fundamentalism and its roots in a misguided messianism that evokes immediate analogues with Christian and Islamic fundamentalism. Unlike the first issue of J.E.S. devoted to the presentations at the Haifa Conference (vol. 56, no. 3 [Summer, 2021]), this second issue is strongly focused on the prehistory of the State of Israel. It deals with the visions, theories, and ethics of those who clamored for a return to Zion—but in a context that acknowledged that the resettlement of the land of Israel could be accomplished in diverse settings operating under distinct ethical, political, and theological auspices. For example, Israel could be a binational state under the joint sovereignty of Jews and Palestinians. Its political economy could run the gamut from authoritarian socialism to democratic socialism to liberal capitalism and monopolistic capitalism. Anarchism, liberalism, and socialism were among the ideologies that attracted the early settlers and clued spectators into the diverse ideologies that characterized democracy in the modern age. For those who are disenchanted where Israel has ended up in the third decade of the twenty-first century, this second collection of the Haifa Conference essays reminds us of all the starting points—the roads not taken by Israel on its historical journey from 1948 to the present—and of the new points of departure that could be fashioned from this larger view of the past.

The drive to Apocalypse Now on the part of both Israeli and Palestinian extremists is the biggest roadblock to peace. Messianism is a distinctly weak theme in the writings of the early Zionist thinkers that are discussed in this issue. Monotheism seen from the perspective of negative theology (which emphasizes that we can only say what God is not, but not what God is) postulates God as being infinitely distant from us. Everything that we cannot say because of God’s infinity comes under this rubric. Following the admonition of the biblical verse of V’Halachta B’Drachav—that we should walk in the ways of God,¹ which the Rabbis interpret as encompassing the structure of our belief system, not just emulating the ethical attributes of kindness and compassion that the Bible attributes to God²—we need to adopt and adapt in our own psychological reflections the idea of God as being infinitely distant from us.

We have to adopt God’s relationship to us as a model for how we view ourselves. Our personal identity (who we authentically, quintessentially are) is infinitely metaphysically and not emotionally distant from us. We are constantly in movement and evolve throughout all of our lives, modifying, revising, extending, and deepening who we are. Existence always precedes essence. Essence is a retrospective reconstruction that we are not in a position to make. We are always poised to reconsider who we are and what we are about. Perhaps, this is the ultimate point...