ABSTRACT
Attending to the role of religion in peacebuilding and conflict transformation is essential, yet it can be complicated, especially in a place like Israel and the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). In the fields of international relations (IR) and, to some extent, in peacebuilding and conflict transformation, religion has not received proper attention but has often been regarded as irrelevant, or worse as an obstruction, to an effective resolution of conf lict (Appleby 2000). According to this view, a society’s development into a modern state requires the relegation of religion to the periphery where politics does not really happen. This view relies on the illusory assumption that people and policymakers can mechanically separate or delink politics from religion; this has proven inaccurate, especially in relation to non-Western societies and their governance frameworks, particularly in areas where conflict is occurring.
