Status quo (Israel)

In Israel, the term status quo (or the secular-religious status quo) refers to the political understanding between religious and secular political parties not to alter the communal arrangement in relation to religious matters, in a predominantly secular population. The established Jewish religious communities in Israel desire to maintain and promote the religious character of the state, while the secular community wishes to reduce the impact of religious regulations in their everyday lives. Occasionally, one political side seeks to make changes to inter-communal arrangements, but these are often met by fierce political opposition from the other side. The status quo preserves the established religious relations in Israel, and only small changes are usually made.

Origins

The prevailing view attributes the origins of the status quo to a letter sent by David Ben-Gurion, as chairman of the Jewish Agency Executive, on 19 June 1947, to the ultra-Orthodox Agudat Israel, in order to form a united policy to present to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP), which had commenced its fact-finding tour 4 days earlier. The letter was meant to address their concerns that the emerging State of Israel will be a secular one, which might hurt the status of religion and religious institutions, as well as the values of their followers.

Status quo (Holy Land sites)

The status quo of the Holy Land sites resulted from a firman (decree) of Ottoman Sultan Osman III in the 18th century that preserved the division of ownership and responsibilities of various sites important to Christians, Muslims, and Jews to their then current holders or owners. The actual provisions of the status quo were never formally established and represented agreements among the various religions that nothing could be changed from the way it was without upsetting the balance of order in maintaining the religious sites for visits by pilgrims.

When the Greeks launched a Palm Sunday takeover of various Holy Land sites in 1757 the Ottomans subsequently upheld this status quo.

This status quo for Jerusalem meant that certain statuses for the Holy Sites would be kept and were recognized as being permanent or at least the way things should be. The city was divided into four quarters. The Temple Mount became a Muslim holy place, and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre as well as other various Christian sites were recognized as belonging to the Christian world. Despite the arguments over who would control what aspects of these sites, the status quo has remained largely intact from the 17th century to the present. Although claims that this status quo was being violated led to the 1929 Palestine riots, it has not been changed, and the quarters and areas remain roughly as they have been inside Suleiman's walls.