The rise of the Frummers

So now it is the religious right who pose the greatest internal threat to the peace process. Because the most contentious pre-1967 territories are the ones most dear to some of the more extreme ultra-orthodox Jews. Though there are also plenty of equally militant secular colonisers, it’s the religious fundamentalists who tend to be the most rabid and active illegal settlers, regarding it as a messianic mission to drive out the infidels. And then there is Jerusalem itself, symbolically inflated by all three major religions into a major focus for spiritual claims. And they’re not going to let it go without a deadly battle, an Armageddon, a fight for ideology. Religion, as always, is what’s getting in the way.

A timely piece by Sally Feldman in the New Humanist.