On the war of religion – Pfeffer in Haaretz:

‘The assault of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Jewish fundamentalist government on Israel’s democracy and every value of liberal Israel has also brought with it a culture war. A war of religion and freedom of religion. In retrospect, this war was going to, perhaps even should have erupted at some point. But it was the government’s judicial overhaul that triggered it.’

(…)

‘The war of religion that officially began in Israel on Yom Kippur this year will be ugly. In Tel Aviv and perhaps other Israeli cities the tolerance for outposts of intolerant Judaism has run out. It is hard to see the annual sukkot which Chabad erect in the city lasting the festival’s seven days. As it is, the movement’s shlichimwho urge passersby to put on tefilin are beginning to look like commandos behind enemy lines.
There is no way now to bridge the divide between those who saw the events of Yom Kippur in Tel Aviv and other cities across Israel as an attempt by religious fanatics to defy the High Court ruling and force gender-separation on a liberal city, and those who saw there radical secularists preventing Jews from holding a sacred event. Israel’s social fabric is too torn. That is Netanyahu’s legacy and his government is trying to rend that fabric asunder.’

(…)

‘He has been exploiting the artificial divide between “Jews” and Israelis” for three decades since he first became Likud leader to build his political base.
Netanyahu is now indistinguishable from his Kahanist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who also rushed to put out a statement following Yom Kippur. Ben-Gvir is promising to come this week to Tel Aviv to hold public prayers there. Both are now taking the name of Judaism in vain, for political gain. It is a tactic that has served them both well and the pro-democracy protesters will have work deftly to avoid being tainted as “antisemitic,” as some of the government’s mouthpieces are already doing online.’

(…)

‘A large majority of Israeli Jews are not fundamentalist. That includes the traditional and a significant part of the religious-Zionist community, which does not share the values of the far-right party which has called itself “Religious Zionism.” But they have accepted that it is the fundamentalists who define Judaism in Israel, because liberal Israel has long ago given up on the issue.’

Read the article here.

The division between Jews and Israelis will only grow deeper, thanks to Netanyahu, but the division is very much part of Zionism, at least of most parts of Zionism. The so-called galut was just a remnant of the past.

And as often is the case, it’s the fundamentalists who define the movement, the religion. It’s the weakness of liberalism (in the European sense of the word) that they tend to give up without a fight because laissez-faire after all, this weakness is also its strength.

Group identity is for the others. Which means that the others will define what the identity consists of.