Holy Places in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Confrontation and Co-existence

Marshall J. Breger, Yitzhak Reiter, Leonard Hammer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9780415848220
• eBook ISBN: 9781135268114
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

This book addresses the major generators of conflict and toleration at shared holy places in Palestine and Israel. Examining the religious, political and legal issues, the authors show how the holy sites have been a focus of both conflict and cooperation between different communities.

Bringing together the views of a diverse group of experts on the region, Holy Places in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict provides a new and multifaceted approach to holy places, giving an in-depth analysis of relevant issues. Themes covered include legal regulation of holy places; nationalization and reproduction of holy space; sharing and contesting holy places; identity politics; and popular legends of holy sites. Chapters cover in detail how recognition and authorization of a new site come about; the influence of religious belief versus political ideology on the designation of holy places; the centrality of such areas to the surrounding political developments; and how historical background and culture affect the perception of a holy site and relations between conflicting groups.

This new approach to the study of holy places and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has great significance for a variety of disciplines, and will be of great interest in the fields of law, politics, religious studies, anthropology and sociology.

1
Introduction

Marshall J. Breger, Yitzhak Reiter, and Leonard Hammer

The interplay of politics and religion

Holy places play an important and oftentimes central role in matters not only of religion, but also of politics. The topic raises significant issues regarding national identity, treatment of minorities and approaches towards coexistence. Indeed, debates surrounding holy places are a metaphor for how we deal with the religious elements of a conflict. They impact and reflect issues of identity and underscore the religious as opposed to the political characteristics of the conflict.

Contemporary ethnic and national conflicts often involve the struggle over holy places¹ or the employment of holy sites as a symbol of group identity² and even as a source of political consolidation versus a rival group. As an indication of a new modern phenomenon, one has only to look at the following examples that have recently occurred: the destruction by radical Sunnis of the Shi’ite Al-Askari Mosque in Samarra during the internecine warfare in Iraq in 2006;³ the destruction of Orthodox churches during the 1999 conflict in Kosovo⁴ and of mosques in Bosnia, between 1992 and 1996,⁵ as well as the destruction of religious property in the siege of Dubrovnik, Croatia by the Yugoslav People’s Army (“JNA”) in 1991⁶ during the armed conflicts in former Yugoslavia; the destruction of statues of Buddha by the Taliban Government of Afghanistan in 2001;⁷ the destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya during the Hindu–Muslim conflict in India and Kashmir in 1992;⁸ and the torching and destruction of Joseph’s Tomb in Nablus by Palestinians in 2000.⁹ While existing literature on holy places refers to issues such as their spatial importance in the geography of the sacred¹⁰ or their manifestation of the human perception of the divine,¹¹ there is little research on the cultural and political aspects of holy sites.¹² This book aims at filling the gap.

Surprisingly, in the age of interdisciplinary research, few studies (at least in the Middle Eastern context) have attempted to consider how both politics and culture affect the status of holy places. Further, discussions regarding the holy places provide an inroad into understanding the importance attached to religious belief and the manner by which the faithful perceive and interpret the actions of other individuals or groups, thereby paving the way for possible coexistence and further dialogue. Focusing on holy places can demonstrate how a conflict can be transformed from a political and nationalist dispute to a religious Kulturkampf and may hopefully allow us to analyze ways of diffusing that dangerous development.¹³

This book will grapple with issues that are both generic and region-specific and will pursue answers to questions such as the following: What are the indicia of holy places and who is authorized to designate such sites? What influences the recognition of a new site and how does recognition come about? Do the designations of holy places reflect political ideology alone or are they truly manifestations of religious beliefs? And how do religious beliefs regarding holy places impact on political considerations? To what extent does culture shape and identify the perception or significance of a holy site? How central are holy places to the surrounding political developments, especially in areas of conflict or dispute? Has the historical background affected the manner by which conflicting ethnic or religious groups relate?

Holy places as an effective cultural element of modern nationalism

Emile Durkheim made a fundamental distinction between the “sacred” and “profane” in religious life. Durkheim submits that “[i]f religious life is to develop, a special place must be prepared for it, one from which profane life is excluded … [t]he institution of temples and sanctuaries arise from this.”¹⁴ Durkheim’s explication of a special (or what we would call sacred) place is apparently based on his approach to the sacred as something which emanates from human nature and from society, and which is superimposed on specific geographical properties.¹⁵ This approach, however, has proven only partially useful. For example, a study by Dawn Mari Hayes of medieval churches in Europe found that the intermingling of the sacred and the profane was in fact the integral reality of Christian sacred places.¹⁶

Mircea Eliade has discussed the role of human—as opposed to divine revelation—in determining the sanctity and status of a particular holy site.¹⁷ In his 1959 book The Sacred and the Profane, Eliade explores how profane space is converted into sacred space and suggests that this symbolic process reflects the spiritual characteristics associated with both the physical features and the deeper, abstract implications of delimiting a particular site as sacred. Designation of a site as sacred is generally a response to one of two types of events. Some events (“hierophanic”) involve a direct manifestation on earth of a deity, whereas in other (“theophanic”) events, someone receives a message from the deity and interprets it for others.¹⁸ Nonetheless, Eliade was referring mainly to the spiritual significance of such sanctification rather than to the earthly aspects of the phenomenon.

Writing in 1979, Harold Turner developed a phenomenological approach to holy places, particularly with regard to those sites that serve as places of worship. He stressed their function as “the center of the world” and as community meeting places in addition to their function as “Houses of God.” In addition, he highlighted their role as representing a microcosm of the heavenly realm and as an immanent-transcendent presence of God everywhere.¹⁹

The phenomenological approach was criticized by succeeding scholars who called for an empirical approach. In his 2004 study of holy cities, Gerard Wiegers distinguished between “profane” urban spaces containing one or more important holy places (such as Jerusalem) and “holy” urban spaces in which holy places or sanctuaries may be found, such as Mecca and Al-Madina for Muslims and Varanasi for Hindus.²⁰ In the latter, the entire city is holy, not simply specific sites within that city.

In their insightful 1995 book American Sacred Space,²¹ Chidester and Linenthal developed ideas presented earlier by Dutch theologian Gerardus Van der Leeuw (whose phenomenological theory was adopted by Eliade). In his 1933 seminal work,²² Van der Leeuw addressed the politics of sacred space, arguing that the very definition of a place as sacred is a political act whose purpose is the “conquest of the space.” Sacred places are, indeed, characterized by a politics of ownership and possession. From the time that a site is defined as sacred, it undergoes expropriation and a change of ownership. Sacred space is also a religious symbol that is mobilized for purposes of political authority. Another political aspect of the holy site is its exclusivity. That is, whoever is outside of its boundaries is excluded from it. And finally, the sacred space is also connected to the politics of exile—that is, the loss of the sacred space or nostalgia for it on the part of those who were connected to it in the distant past and are now, in the modern era, severed from it.²³

Chidester and Linenthal expanded upon Van der Leeuw’s thesis and emphasized the secular forces which come into play with regard to the holy site. In their view, a sacred space exists not merely in the heavenly dimension but also on the plane of reality, hierarchical power relations between rulers and ruled, exclusion, and inclusion, ownership and the loss of ownership. They adopt Michel Foucault’s theory of power²⁴ in order to explain the various functions exerted upon a holy site. Sacred space is, first and foremost, a venue for ritual activity. It is a place that radiates meaning to man. Thus, it is the focus of an unavoidable competition or struggle over ownership, legitimacy and sacred symbols. Because sacred space is also a place over which ownership or possession may be claimed and which may be used by human beings seeking to further specific ends, it is also an arena in which various players engage in a power struggle.

Most interestingly, Chidester and Linenthal suggest that a holy place is usually considered most sacred by those who had originally sanctified it, when it is perceived as being in danger of secularization by economic, social and political forces or of seizure by some other entity which is liable to defile it. Competing religious groups view Jerusalem, for example, as endangered sacred space. Some have argued that the city received special attention by the Muslim Umayyad Dynasty, which moved its capital to nearby Al-Sham (Greater Syria) which Jerusalem was part of, as well as by the Ayyubids after its conquest by the Crusaders. All of them followed the city’s sanctification by the Holy Scriptures from Abraham’s Mount Moriah, via David’s City and Solomon’s Temple, Jesus’ encounters and Muhammad’s Night Journey.²⁵ The historical stories involving holy men inspires current peoples and nations and, as witnessed after Israel conquered East Jerusalem in 1967, the city has become a major focus of struggle between Israeli Jews and Palestinian and Arab Muslims.²⁶ Holy places, then, take on greater sanctity when people are willing to fight and die for it. People are willing to die in struggles over h...

Table of contents

• Routledge Studies in Middle Eastern Politics
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The legal regulation of holy sites*
• 3 Protection of holy places in international law
• 4 Wars and sacred space
• 5 The three kinds of holy places in Jewish Law
• 6 The waqf in Israel since 1965
• 7 Holy places in urban spaces
• 8 The pessimist’s guide to religious coexistence
• 9 Contest or cohabitation in shared holy places?
• 10 Treatment of antiquities on the Temple Mount/Al-Haram al-Sharif 1
• 11 The Shihab Al-Din Mosque affair in Nazareth1
• 12 Holy shrines (maqamat) in modern Palestine/Israel and the politics of memory1
• 13 Self-empowerment through the sacred culture and representation in the urban landscape
• 14 The head of Husayn Ibn Ali
• Bibliography
• Index