Of late, there have been disturbing reports from Israel about the steady encroachment of ultra-Orthodox Jewish views and attitudes in the public sphere. Increasingly, women are being forced to sit at the back of public buses, and this segregation is being pushed into other spaces.

What triggered off an intense debate about the role of religion in society was a sad incident that exposed the deep fissures in Israel. Naama Margolese, an 8-year old schoolgirl, has been repeatedly cursed and spat at by ultra-Orthodox Jews (or Haredi) as she walked past them on her way to religious school.

The reason? According to the men, themselves dressed in long black coats and hats, and sporting untrimmed beards, the little girl was not dressed in the prescribed manner. Even though she was very modestly clothed, the men reviled her for not conforming to their rigid code of female attire.

Increasingly, the friction between secular Jews and the Haredi is beginning to sound familiar to us in Pakistan. But the parallels do not stop here. Just as the Jamaat-i-Islami opposed the creation of Pakistan tooth and nail, and heaped scorn on Mr Jinnah, so too did the Haredi fight against the Zionist venture.

Of course, the reasons for this opposition were different. Many fundamentalist Muslims rejected the notion of political boundaries, and wished to evangelise in an undivided India in order to ultimately rule it. The Haredi, on the other hand, took the view that only divine intervention — and not secular Zionists — could lead the Jews back to the Promised Land.

The Haredi also preceded secular European Jews in the region, having lived in Palestine for generations.

In the early days of Israel, these differences were papered over, but gradually, they have come to the fore of the public agenda. The growing political clout of the Haredi is partly due to their high birth rate: increasing at an annual rate of around seven per cent, they are doubling in number every 12 years, and today make up 10 per cent of Israel’s population.

The number of Knesset seats they control has risen rapidly from six in 1984 to 18 presently. In a house of 120, this has accorded them a disproportionate voice. Given the nature of coalition politics in a proportionate electoral system, the extreme right party Shas calls the shots, and largely drives the country’s settlement policy that has proven to be a major sticking point in peace talks with the Palestinians.

One reason the Haredi continue to expand their presence in the Knesset as well as across the public domain is that 90 per cent of them vote, as against 32 per cent of secular Israelis.

This activism, together with the high Haredi birth rate, promises to change the nature of Israeli society, as well as the face of world Jewry. From being mostly liberal, tolerant world citizens, they seem to be on a rapid trajectory towards becoming a harsh, literalist people.

This, too, is a familiar path to us in Pakistan. From being a secular, forward-looking country when it was created, it has drifted steadily towards religious extremism and intolerance.

But this growing emphasis on religion in both Pakistan and Israel could have been easily foreseen: when a state is created in the name of an ideology, one should not be surprised when that divine or manmade doctrine comes to dominate the discourse.

Today in Pakistan, how many people remember Jinnah as a secular, modern man? The creator of Pakistan has even been given the title ‘Hazrat’ to cement the religious mask we have forced upon him after his death. Many young Pakistanis would be deeply offended to learn the kind of unorthodox believer he was in real life. In Pakistan, the space for liberal thought and expression has almost been squeezed out of existence.

This process has been much slower in Israel because at its creation, it received a large influx of highly educated, secular European Jews. Urbane and sophisticated, they looked down on the Haredi as primitive, backward zealots. However, Israel’s many wars with its neighbours, and its unending occupation of Palestinian territories, have created a siege mentality.

Both the Haredi and non-orthodox Jews are united in their desire to impose Israeli might over the region.

One reason the Haredi are so unpopular is that they have won a special status that frees many of them of the obligation to serve in the Israeli Defence Forces as other citizens have to.

Students enrolled for religious studies do not have to join the IDF, so thousands of young Haredi remain registered at special schools until they have passed the age of compulsory military service.

And as these people are not qualified to get jobs in a highly productive, modern economy, they live off state welfare benefits. Both these allowances are deeply resented by mainstream Israelis who see the Haredi as parasites. This is understandable, considering that over 60 per cent of Haredi men, and over 50 per cent of women, do not work.

This tension is becoming increasingly pronounced. The Haredi accuse the liberal media of demonising them, while their opponents view the steady encroachment of extremism with growing alarm. But ultimately, it is the numbers that count. According to estimates, by 2050, over half of all Israeli, US and British Jews will be Haredi.

Small wonder that growing numbers of secular Israelis are migrating. Now, more Jews are leaving Israel than those who arrive there to settle. Given the Haredi contempt for the arts and the sciences, the enormous Jewish contribution to human progress will probably decline.

The similarities between the Haredi and our fundamentalists are startling. Both reject the notion of family planning, and have huge families as a result. Neither value knowledge and beauty, insisting that the scriptures are the founts of all learning. The women of both communities are shrouded from head to toe, and are permitted virtually no freedom.

So although Israel and Pakistan are poles apart in terms of geography and politics, they are spiritually much closer than either would like to admit.