ABSTRACT
Religion is key to understanding politics in the Middle East, as it is elsewhere in the world. Religion shapes not only Muslim Middle Eastern countries but also predominately Jewish Israel. As Ira Sharkansky observes, "Perhaps the most fundamental reason for there being a thick mixture of politics and religion in Israel is that there is a great similarity in the underlying characteristics of religion and politics." The vast majority of the people who live in the Middle East belong to one of the three monotheistic religions: Islam, Judaism, or Christianity. Religious beliefs and practices have a profound effect on both political philosophy and the formation of political institutions. Religion serves multiple political purposes: to offer cohesion under piety and obligation to an otherwise fractured political community, to construct the moral basis of laws of conduct, and to underpin political authority.
