Treating both sides’ religious claims as equivalent falsely cross-equates them.

Evidence

The debates over the comparative use of religion and religious claims by Zionist and Palestinian national narratives and political discourses have followed different lines. A common line of discussion tends to lump and treat both sets of narratives within the universal practice of using religion for political ends (Bunzl 2009; Landau 2009). From this perspective, the fight between Zionism, on one side, and the Arabs and the Palestinians, on the other, is framed within the context of religious national conflicts, typically characterized by a process of conflating religious and nationalist claims. The tactical and strategic use of religious claims by reinventing them in the form of modern national aspirations and proclamations is common practice across all parties involved in such conflicts. However, by offering this understanding, which comingles religion and politics – forms seemingly followed both by mainstream Zionism and the Palestinians – matters are, in fact, simplified and mistakenly cross-equated. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 2365

Categorization

• XREF: Directly relevant to this book’s MOC thread — the authors contest a mirror-image symmetry claim that would see religion-as-racial-marker operating identically on both sides of the conflict. — connects to: Zionist and Palestinian uses of religion differ fundamentally in function and centrality — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 2366; Religious claims anchor constitutional inequality and block democratic equality. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 565