Missouri Zion, Missouri Intifada: Mormonism, Zionism and the Palestine Conflict

Abstract

The roots of Palestinian-Israeli conflict are often thought to be essentially religious or nationalistic,but such accounts miss the juridical nature of the conflict's origins. The potential for conflict in diff erent understandings of law can be seen in a parallel to the Zionist immigration to Palestine: the Mormon movement to western Missouri. In Jackson County those who had come earlier to the frontier reacted violently to the Mormon threat to pre-emptive rights. In Palestine too, it is argued,the violence followed from differing concepts of legitimate land use, with (as in Missouri) one side relying on title and the other on custom.