Just a few weeks ago, we here in Israel were able to enjoy one of those rare moments of good news: a live hostage was rescued from the Gaza Strip. The announcement was met with public tears and whoops of joy on social media and on the street.
Qaid Farhan al-Qadi, a Muslim, was taken hostage into Gaza by Hamas almost a year ago and after enduring cruel captivity under devastating conditions, he was rescued by the Israel Defense Force. Yes, the “Islamic resistance” captured and held another Muslim. And yes, he was rescued by “the Jewish state,” only the eighth hostage to be rescued alive so far. Hundreds more hostages – overwhelmingly Jews – continue to languish in Gaza under unspeakable conditions. Yet the Jewish state used its intelligence, resources to undertake a dangerous mission to save an Israeli Muslim.
The indiscriminate nature of Hamas’ massacre on October 7 was brought into sharp relief by the fact that they murdered, injured and tortured not only Jews but also their fellow Muslims, in addition to Christians. In media interviews, al-Qadi explained that he was treated by Hamas not as a fellow Muslim, but as an Israeli, whom they had every right to capture, starve and terrorize. Hamas’ hatred of a political state and its citizens is greater than any putative faithfulness to Islamic values of love for God and fellow believers.
I found this particularly devastating, yet also very telling; while Hamas commits evil against Israeli citizens, regardless of religion, Israel actively works for the preservation and safety of all Israeli citizens, regardless of religion. The security of al-Qadi and other Muslim and Christian citizens is Israel’s responsibility, as much as any Jewish citizen.
Israel is clearly a Jewish state which gives a certain legal privilege to the religion of Judaism and – in some cases, even to Jews. I recognize that this unavoidably gives rise to situations of inequality, not unlike any social or political program that seeks to level historical and structural injustices through unequal distribution of rights such as gender or race-based affirmative action, indigenous tax exemptions on native lands, or veterans’ rights.
Jews have the special “Right of Return” which, barring certain special conditions, gives any Jew from anywhere the right to acquire citizenship. This can and does lead to the complex situation in which a person is eligible for Israeli citizenship thanks to Jewish ancestry, and yet according to Judaism not actually be Jewish. For example, a significant number of immigrants with Jewish ancestry who became Israeli citizens under the law of return from the former Soviet Union are practicing Christians who self-identify as such. The law of return is profoundly communal and historical in nature. It serves as an active counter to Nazi racial policy, which threatened the very lives of anyone with Jewish ancestry, regardless of their religious faith or practice. Israel has worked to position itself as a safe haven for anyone of Jewish ancestry precisely because we have seen what happens without such security.
During his apostolic visit to the United Kingdom in 2010, Pope Benedict XVI underscored the space of religion in the public sphere:
“Religion, in other words, is not a problem for legislators to solve, but a vital contributor to the national conversation. In this light, I cannot but voice my concern at the increasing marginalization of religion, particularly of Christianity, that is taking place in some quarters, even in nations which place a great emphasis on tolerance. There are those who would advocate that the voice of religion be silenced, or at least relegated to the purely private sphere. There are those who argue that the public celebration of festivals such as Christmas should be discouraged, in the questionable belief that it might somehow offend those of other religions or none. And there are those who argue – paradoxically with the intention of eliminating discrimination – that Christians in public roles should be required at times to act against their conscience. These are worrying signs of a failure to appreciate not only the rights of believers to freedom of conscience and freedom of religion, but also the legitimate role of religion in the public square.”
The ideal role for religion in the modern state has no clear answers: aggressive secularism and the marginalization of religion must be repudiated, as must religiously theocratic states that do not protect religious minorities and freedoms. In his 2017 message in Warsaw, Pope Benedict XVI advocated searching for new possibilities: “These radical ideologies require us to urgently develop a convincing concept of the state that will stand up to the confrontation between these challenges and help to overcome it.”
Israel might not get the balance just right, but I daresay it does so far better than most countries. Having grown up as part of a minority religion in Canada, where Catholic students receive public funding but Jewish (and other religious) schools do not, where Christmas and Good Friday are national days of rest but Jewish (and other religious) holidays are not, and where university exams were never on a Sunday but could be on a Saturday, I know Israel is not the only Western state to struggle with this issue.
Indeed, Israel is a state with an active role for religion in the public sphere that also preserves the rights of religious minorities. But it’s not just about rights or even equality: it’s also about that subjective sense of belonging, particularly as a member of a minority religion. On October 7th Qaid Farhan al-Qadi was kidnapped by other Muslims because he was “one of us.” 326 days later he was rescued by the Jewish state, also because he was “one of us.” Israel might not get the balance quite right, but it is an inspiring case to think with about the balancing of state religion with the protection and inclusion of religious minorities.