Israel’s putatively secular founding period was suffused with religious justifications at its core.

Evidence

Many scholars refer to the period from Israel’s establishment until the early 1970s as the “secular period” in Israel’s history (e.g., Peled and Peled 2018; Ram 2008). But as Azmi Bishara (2005, 31) points out about this period, “[a]t the height of its secularism, Zionism has never succeeded in creating a secular definition of Judaism that differs from the definition of the Jewish halacha for this affiliation, i.e., for religion. In the eyes of Zionism, a Jew in the national sense is also a Jew in the religious sense.” While in comparison to what has recently been unfolding in Israel, one can say that politics during that period was less openly sacralized, its depiction as secular overlooks the underlying religious values, religious claims, and religious justifications in the most fundamental (secular) state-making components – demographic control, land control, and exclusive state sovereignty (as the political translation of the monopoly of the use of legitimate force). — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 498

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s core question about whether religious/national conviction is truly secular or masks sacralized foundations — resonates with work on how putatively secular states encode religious exclusion in founding legal categories (e.g., citizenship law), paralleling colonial ‘civilizing mission’ structures read earlier. — connects to: The religious core is inseparable from Zionism but separable from Israeli Jewish nationalism — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 564; Secular Zionism deliberately fused itself with religious claims to build legitimacy. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 511; Secular Zionist leaders invoke religious claims to obscure settler colonialism. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 442 (+2 more)

Broader Connections

• Secular Zionism deliberately fused itself with religious claims to build legitimacy. #expands (0.85) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 511
• Zionist secularization nationalized messianic myth rather than replacing it #expands (0.82) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 315
• The religious core is inseparable from Zionism but separable from Israeli Jewish nationalism #qualifies (0.80) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 564
• Secular Zionist leaders invoke religious claims to obscure settler colonialism. #expands (0.75) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 442
• Israeli ‘secular’ identity is only definable negatively as not-religious. #complicates (0.72) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 774