Abstract
This study explores the thoughts, responses, and reflections of the Arabic-speaking Christian citizens of the state of Israel to the resurrection of religious nationalism in the Middle East and in Israel. It delves into various manifestations and expressions of their national identity within an Arab-Muslim Society and a Jewish state. It focuses on the period between 1980 and 2014, covering how Christians coped with, and responded to the empowerment of Islamic nationalism in the region and in Arab society in Israel following the Islamic Revolution in 1979, and, to a lesser degree, to the strengthening of the Jewish religious identity of the state.
This research identifies three main approaches (responses): The Christians, the majority of whom were Orthodox, have sought non-religious ideologies and nationalisms to prevent sectarianism within Arab society, downplayed the role of Islam in the region by attempting to unite with the Muslims under a supra identity, and rejecting Israel, continuing to praise Arab national thought and modern Arab nationalism, as well as Communism to a lesser degree. Those were the ideologies that their co-religionists in the Levant advocated for in the previous century; other Christians, mainly a segment of Maronites, claimed that Christians should acknowledge that Islam is the main ethnic factor in Arab identity and Arab society, and that Christians’ roots are ancient Aramaic, the ethnicity that Israel should recognize as a nationality for its Christian citizens the way it recognized Druze as both an ethnicity and a nationality. The peak of a Christian national manifestation in Israel was in 2014 when Israel formally recognized “Aramaic” as a nationality for its Christian citizens who wanted to change their nationality from Arab to Aramaic, thus enabling those Christians who believed that they were not Arabs to separate from Arab society and the Arab national structure in Israel, and to further integrate within Israeli society. A third approach underemphasized nationalistic definitions and emphasized citizenship and integration within Israel irrespective of the lack of their affiliation with the Jewish nationality of the state.
While much of the criticism and literature regarded Israel’s policy of divide and rule as the cause of divisions within Arab society in general, and among the Christians in specific, this research reveals that the responses of the Christians to Islam and Islamic Arab society were framed in a larger historical context of the development of the ethnic and national identities of Christians in the Middle East, which predated the establishment of Israel. However, because the state upon its founding included ancient communities that already had a long history of conflicts, and because it did not recognize “Israeli” as a nationality, in favor of defining communities by ethnically specific nationalities (Jewish, Druze, Arab…) ancient traditions, inter-communal conflicts, and religious sentiments continued to play significant roles in Israel. These forces became more evident when Islamic religious identity in the last four decades strengthened and overshadowed other non-religious identities, thus increasing the predicament of the national identity of the Christians.