Religious Nationalism and Holyland

The concept of holy land is very important in religious nationalism. Though every nationalism has a territorial dimension and all nationalist sing songs about the special significance of the piece of globe that they crave and usually there is religious dimension of it too (as America is frequently referred to as 'new Israel' or 'new Jerusalem'), religious nationalism is different as land sometimes even becomes more important than the people. Some areas have special significance for some religions like Palestine/Israel for the three Abrahamic religions, Hijaz (Saudi Arabia) for Islam or Rome for Christianity. Palestine/Israel is particularly linked with the word holy land because of the preponderance of Abrahamic religions in the world (An article about the importance of this land for the Judaism, Islam and Christianity and consequences for the conflict HolyLand, Unholy War: The Religious Dimension of Israeli-Palestine Conflict). However, religious nationalists are not limited because of absence of such significance. They create the significance themselves and the land becomes 'holy' even when the religious scriptures, prophets and early religious leaders never gave any importance to this particular piece of globe.

The usual arguments of the religious nationalists about holy land are as follows:

1. This land is special and have been awarded/gifted to people by God (or gods) to create a specific type of society where good always prevails and that is free from all evils i.e. heaven on earth. As one can notice the human agency is downplayed here.
2. The only way to create this society is to implement religious laws. Any other type of laws or mixing of other laws with religious laws would lead to strife, violence and eventual destruction of this society.
3. People from other religions have to accept that this is chosen land so they cannot be equal nationals/citizens.
4. Democracy is acceptable but it should be within the overarching framework of the religious doctrine.

An obvious similarity between religious and ethnic nationalism is that both appear to be discriminatory. However, religious nationalists would argue that they are more closer to civic nationalism as their nationalism is based on specific values that anyone can adopt and join. This is unlike ethnic nationalism that is based on ethnicity that is usually difficult to change for an individual.    

The current debate on whether Israel should be a Jewish state or not is particularly interesting in terms of the concept of holy land (See Four reasons why Israel must be recognized as a Jewish state and Why Israel Can't be a 'Jewish State')

For those who may think concepts like holy land are 'out there' believed by 'others', here is a powerful argument on the importance of holy land concept in the US history Sacred Geographies: Religion, Race, and the Holy Land in U.S. Literature 1890 -1920 by Molly K. Robey.