ABSTRACT
What is called Statism, civil religion created by the founders of the state of Israel, functioned as a ‘substitute for traditional religion’ and became a ‘quasireligion’ for Israeli society, in which the traditional concepts of faith and covenant were redefined in relation to the State, instead of to God – thus the name Statism. The ‘joy and enthusiasm evoked by the creation of the state of Israel’, Charles Liebman and Eliezer Don-Yehiya assert, ‘had the character of Messianic sentiments’, and in this way many Israelis believed ‘the state to be the fulfillment of the traditional Jewish vision of redemption’.2 In fact, as mentioned earlier, the creation of the state of Israel had a biblical connotation, not only for Jews but also for Christians. The crucial role that President Harry Truman, called ‘the American Cyrus’, reminiscent of the biblical figure of Cyrus, played in the creation of the state of Israel, notwithstanding the political-electoral concerns, is attributed by some to his ‘conversance with the history of the Middle East and his knowledge of the Bible’.3 Again, President Jimmy Carter is quoted as saying in 1976: ‘I am pro-Israeli, not because of political expediency, but
because I believe Israel is the fulfilment of Biblical prophecy’.4 Christian world’s approval of a Jewish state in Palestine in reference to the Bible indicates its recognition of the Jews as the ‘chosen people’ and of their mysterious function in God’s plan for the world, as indicated by Paul in the Letter to the Romans.5
