Israel: The First Hundred Years by Karsh Efraim

Author:Karsh, Efraim
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781135262853
Publisher: Taylor and Francis

State-Religion Relations in Israel: The Subtle Issue Underlying the Rabin Assassination

EFRAIM BEN-ZADOK

In 1974, Yitzhak Rabin became the new Prime Minister of the Labour-led government in Israel. Rabin, who had been the Chief of Staff and the hero of the legendary victory over the Arab countries in the 1967 war, was attempting to rescue the declining Labour Party, whose leadership was blamed for the costly results of the indecisive 1973 Yom Kippur War. But even with Rabin as a premier, Labour's three decades in office would soon come to an end. The backlash of the war, as well as internal political rivalries and financial corruptions after long tenure in power, all led to a Labour defeat in the 1977 elections. A right-wing Likud-led government then entered office for the first time since the establishment of the state in 1948.1

Not too many Israelis remember, however, the direct cause for the fall of the first Rabin government just before the 1977 elections. And again, perhaps not too many Israelis acknowledge the direct cause for the assassination of Rabin and, as a result, the fall of his second government just before the 1996 elections. The direct reason for the fall of these two secular Rabin governments was their tense conflict with powerful elements in the religious Jewish community.

Rabin stepped down and elections were declared for 17 May 1977, after the National Religious Party abstained in a no confidence motion against the government, in effect removing itself from the Labour-led coalition government. The motion was introduced in the Knesset by Agudat Israel, another religious party, because of what the party viewed as a government sponsored violation of the Sabbath. The party claimed that the arrival of the first American F-15 jets to Israel had been celebrated in a military ceremony that ended only 15 minutes before sundown on a Friday (10 December 1976), when the Jewish Sabbath begins. The timing of the official ceremony was much too late for Sabbath observers.2

It was the clash around the holiness of the Sabbath that served as the direct cause for the fall of the first Rabin government. Ironically perhaps, it was the clash around another religious issue, the holiness of the Land of Israel, that was the direct cause for the assassination of the Prime Minister on 4 November 1995 and the fall of the second Rabin government. The famous war strategist who emerged to power in 1974, and re-emerged in 1992 to lead Labour back to office after fifteen years of Likud rule, lost in his final two battles against powerful elements in the religious Jewish community.

Nonetheless, the conventional wisdom, and the one that has been repeatedly discussed in the media, was that the Rabin assassination was a reflection of Israel's left-right debate regarding the future of the West Bank and Palestinian Autonomy.3 This article argues that this view is only a partial explanation and that the assassination largely reflected another, more critical debate – Israel's secular-religious debate regarding state-religion relations.4 The tension between state and religion, so goes the argument, is the most subtle and sensitive issue facing Israeli politics today.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.