Zionist Ultranationalism and Its Attitude toward Religion

Abstract

There is an impression that ultranationalist Zionism is rooted in the Jewish religious tradition; however, as we hope to demonstrate, the attitude of the ultranationalist movement toward religion was characterized by development and change rather than a consistent and one-sided position. For the purposes of this article, ultranationalism is defined by two characteristics. First, it claims that Jews have exclusive right to sovereignty over all Eretz Israel (the Land of Israel), a territory imprecisely defined but including the present Kingdom of Jordan and the area today known as the West Bank. Since 1967 the territorial claims of Israeli ultranationalists have been expressed primarily in the demand for the exercise of complete Israeli sovereignty over the West Bank. Prior to the creation of Israel, the period with which most of this essay is con cerned , Jewish ultranationalism was distinguished by broader terri torial claims. The second distinguishing characteristic of ultrana tionalism is what it called Zionist monism: the insistence on