Modern Jewish Identities and the State of Israel

Is it possible to produce a significant attitude, in which the multiplicity of identities in the State of Israel will be productive and fertile, rather than one that necessarily fosters tension and destructive inner conflict within the state? This question stands at the heart of this article, which argues that the State of Israel is a complex and tangled combination of two Jewish identities, that of the State of Israel and that of the Land of Israel. These diverging identities cultivate and influence one another. Eventually, the Land of Israel may overpower the State of Israel, and the Israeli – Palestinian political struggle may become one that rages between the Jewish and Moslem faiths, since the upheaval that Zionism engendered was no more than a temporary and superficial activity within the Jewish collective consciousness.