In 1844, a Bible scholar and professor of Hebrew at New York University published a pamphlet that urged establishment of a Jewish state in the place then known as Palestine. The name of this early Zionist was George Bush.
But the astonishing thing is not just that this author was a forebear of two later U.S. presidents of the same name. His advocacy of a theological/political position known as “restorationism” — support for the “restoration” of the Jewish people to their historic homeland — actually was common in 19th century America.
This little-known fact about U.S. attitudes toward the Middle East is one among many in what may be one of the most important books on the subject to be published in this or any year: “Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present” by Israeli historian Michael Oren.
Oren is based at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem. His book overflows with colorful tales of American travelers, pilgrims, businessmen, missionaries, diplomats, soldiers and sailors who weren’t merely observers of this pivotal area of the globe (the term for which was coined by U.S. naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan).
Americans have, from the beginning of our history as a nation, played a crucial role in shaping the Middle East. And as Oren illustrates, we, in turn, have been influenced by this interaction.
Indeed, formation of the United States is, in part, a result of our first encounter with the Arab and Muslim world: the long struggle with the semi-independent city states of North Africa known to us as the Barbary Pirates.
The inability of the independent 13 American states to protect shipping and sailors from the depredations of those early terrorists motivated many to push for the enactment of the Constitution.
Going to Paradise
If that nearly forgotten war bears a strange resemblance to the contemporary conflict with Islamist terrorists, it is no coincidence.
Oren recounts the shock of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams who, while serving as American ambassadors in Europe during the 1780s, met with the Abd al-Rahman, a representative of the pasha of Tripoli, a major source of anti-American terror on the high seas.
In making demands for tribute, Al-Rahman told Adams and Jefferson that his country was fighting under the authority of the Koran, which authorized them to make wars on all non-believers and to enslave all Western prisoners in terms that Al Qaeda would have appreciated.
“Every Mussulman [sic] who should be slain in battle” with America, he said, “was sure to go to Paradise.”
Oren’s book is filled with a host of such encounters that may be new even to those who have been reading about the subject their entire lives. Such tales delight history lovers.
But aside from pleasure for general as well as specialized readers, a far broader moral to be learned from this volume speaks directly to contemporary political debate.
It is that the ideas promulgated by people such as former President Jimmy Carter or “Israel Lobby” critics John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt ignore two centuries of history and smear Jews and other friends of Israel.
Oren illustrates throughout his book how deeply run the roots of American support for Zionism. There have been numerous instances when mainstream American Christians spoke for Jewish rights to Zion long before Zionist movement founder Theodor Herzl did.
Oren also illustrates that the crucial roles of Presidents Woodrow Wilson in backing the Balfour Declaration and Harry S. Truman in recognizing the new State of Israel did not result from political calculation, but were decisions based on deeply held beliefs of these leaders.
The idea of Israel has always been part of the sensibilities of American religious thinking. No lobby could possibly create the broad support for Israel that existed and still exists across the spectrum of mainstream America, powered by faith and secular democratic values.
Oren shows that rejection of Zionism also has deep roots in the tradition of Protestant missionaries. Those Americans came to the Middle East seeking converts, but also founded such institutions as the American Universities in Cairo and Beirut, which inculcated the spirit of American democracy and nationalism in generations of Arab intellectuals.
Ironically, it was Americans who founded Arab nationalism. That means the notion of spreading democracy to the region wasn’t invented by President George W. Bush or the “neocons” but by the intellectual (and in some cases actual) ancestors of modern “Arabists” in the State Department.
The late Edward Said’s thesis — that all Western views of the region are inherently racist “Orientalism” — dominates the academy these days and helps spread the idea that American power is a force for evil abroad. Oren’s research stands as a conclusive reproof to this fallacy.
Though oil and profit have played parts in the story of America’s encounter with the region, more altruistic motives have always tended to dominate our policies.
Oren rightly concludes that, “On balance, Americans historically brought far more beneficence than avarice to the Middle East and caused significantly less harm than good.”
In an era in which global terror based in the Middle East is the primary challenge to the survival of democracy, “Power, Faith and Fantasy” ought to be read and understood by as many Americans as possible.
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.
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