Loving Violent Arabs: A Study of Radicalism Within the Israeli Messianic Movement

Steiner and Lundberg examine how Israeli Messianic leaders articulate the hope for peace in the Middle East. More specifically, they draw attention to how Messianic leaders understand the Middle Eastern conflicts and whether this understanding could be considered as radical. All of the informants underline the complexity of the conflicts and most of them tend to emphasize their permanence. The informants are pessimists regarding the conflict, half of them describe it in fatalist terms. This colours their hope for peace; they expect an escalation of the Middle Eastern conflicts, even the apocalypse. And lastly, the informants prefer a one-state solution. In comparison to the Israeli political mainstream, like Likud, the Messianic movement is not necessarily radical.