The Divergence of Judaism and Islam. Interdependence, Modernity, and Political Turmoil

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300 · Ben Mollov


conflict, he recalled the possible application of some aspects of the former
Ottoman millet and capitulation systems. He emphasized in this regard
that “it is not a question of outsiders having special status in the region,
but rather of the peoples of the region being able to work out special
status arrangements for each other across national boundaries, without
eliminating either the boundaries or the people.^33
The Arab-Jewish schism in the Middle East involves interstate or Is-
raeli-Palestinian relations as well as relations within the state of Israel,
particularly in terms of relations between the Jewish and Arab sectors. In
this area the interreligious dialogue, involving similarities between Islam
and Judaism and federal approaches to managing this conflict, is also
germane. While there are numerous social and cultural schisms within
Israel, the most difficult division and intergroup tension exist between
its majority Jewish group and its Arab minority, which accounts for ap-
proximately 18 percent of the population.
Can the interreligious dialogue, which seemed to hold positive poten-
tial on the Israeli-Palestinian track, also be applied to Jewish-Arab rela-
tions in Israel? According to several dialogues that Lavie and I tracked,^34
a similarly positive result was discerned between Jews and Arabs, all
citizens of the state of Israel.
While these dialogues took place between citizens of the same state,
the intercultural component with a relationship to federalist thinking
remains strongly germane. Various observers of Jewish-Arab relations
within Israel have maintained that such relations cannot be divorced
from regional dynamics. Thus the Jewish public of Israel meets the Arab
world on three levels—its own Arab population, the Palestinians living
within the Palestinian Authority, and the larger Middle Eastern and Arab
world. When there is either progress or conflict on any of these levels, the
other tiers of interaction are affected.
Such an insight enhances the importance of federalist thinking as ar-
ticulated by Elazar given the international reality of increasingly multi-
cultural schisms within nation-states. Despite the vision of the traditional
nation-state from the time of the French Revolution, most nation-states
today are no longer ethnically homogeneous.^35 In increasing numbers of
nation-states whose stability once rested on an overwhelming homoge-
neous population, policy makers find themselves challenged to maintain
the cultural and national core of their societies while responding to the
identity and cultural needs of ever larger ethnic minorities. In countries

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