ABSTRACT
This article explores the historical evolution of the secular-religious divide in Israel against the backdrop of current theories of postsecularism and applies methods of conflict transformation across worldviews to suggest a path to regulate and narrow the rift. In Israel, public religions now play a major role in political life, and “post secular” dialectics, in which the secular and sacred clash, coexist and coincide, now prevail in the public sphere. Overcoming the dominance of fragmentation processes may require erecting a hybrid secular-religious political order of an explicitly interim nature, which aims to regulate deep-seated conflict rather than resolve it. The aim of such an arrangement would be to transform intra-Israeli conflict dynamics from antagonistic, destructive ones between enemies who pursue total victory to an agonistic conflict between stakeholders who consider each other legitimate adversaries. Doing so would require both institutional and ideational remedies, that would offer Israeli society new ways to share and divide the public sphere.
