Zionism required religious myth because it lacked the land and language pillars of nationalism.

Evidence

Paradoxically and from a modernist broader perspective, Zionism’s ingrained religious claims molded in ancient mythologies seem to belong to the premodern era, whereas Palestinian nationalism with its embracement of nation-based justifi- cations belongs to the more universal modern precepts of national identity formation. Yet, because the two founding pillars of modern nationalism – a population attached to a single territorial base and a unifying language – were missing when Zionism originated, building an ideology based solely on nationalism would not have been possible. The concerted effort to project Zionism as a modern, Western enterprise was not viable without the armor of religious myths and ancient histories. Adherence to an idea of secular nationalism solely, without the religious claims, would have exposed the inherent vulnerability of Zionism rather than facilitate its consolidation. Zionism needed to find and claim a territory, as well as to reinvent a unifying language, for the massively varied Jewish groups that spoke dozens of languages and lived all over the world. Only this dual effort, requiring the deployment of the mightiest religious arsenal, could have succeeded. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 2373

Categorization

• XREF: Theorizes a mechanism directly relevant to the MOC thread: whether the drive to deploy religion-as-racial-marker is caused by the settler-colonist’s absence of the two nationalism pillars, not by Western governance per se. — connects to: Religion functioned to invent Zionist land claims but only to mobilize Palestinians. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 2367; Territorial sovereignty over a diaspora required settler colonization. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 477; Zionist secularization nationalized messianic myth rather than replacing it — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized:…, 315 (+3 more)
• QUESTION: Does this mechanism generalize to the postcolonial non-Western sacralizing cases (Hindutva, Kosovo) — do those too lack a land-plus-language base, or is the causal driver different there?
• DEEPTHINKING: Offers a candidate causal law for why some nationalisms need religion (missing native territorial population or unifying language) — a lever to test against the Ottoman, Mughal, and Indian cases the reader is cross-examining.

Broader Connections

• Zionist secularization nationalized messianic myth rather than replacing it #corroborates (0.80) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 315
• Secular Zionism reinterpreted theology rather than departing from it #contradicts (0.80)
• Zionism reacted against the older invention of Judaism as religion. #corroborates (0.75) — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 748