A Religious Problem

WSJ.com OpinionJournal

A Religious Problem


BY MICHAEL B. OREN
Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Several prominent scholars have taken issue with Jimmy Carter's book "Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid," cataloguing its historical inaccuracies and lamenting its lack of balance. The journalist Jeffrey Goldberg also critiqued the book's theological purpose, which, he asserted, was to "convince American Evangelicals to reconsider their support for Israel."

Mr. Carter indeed seems to have a religious problem with the Jewish state. His book bewails the fact that Israel is not the reincarnation of ancient Judea but a modern, largely temporal democracy. "I had long taught lessons from the Hebrew Scriptures," he recalls telling Prime Minister Golda Meir during his first tour through the country. "A common historical pattern was that Israel was punished whenever the leaders turned away from devout worship of God. I asked if she was concerned about the secular nature of the Labor government." He also reproves contemporary Israelis for allegedly mistreating the Samaritans--"the same complaint heard by Jesus almost two thousand years earlier"--and for pilfering water from the Jordan River, "where . . . Jesus had been baptized by John the Baptist."

Disturbed by secular Laborites, he is further unnerved by religiously minded Israelis who seek to fulfill the biblical injunction to settle the entire Land of Israel. There are "two Israels," Mr. Carter concludes, one which embodies the "the ancient culture of the Jewish people, defined by the Hebrew Scriptures," and the other in "the occupied Palestinian territories," which refuses to "respect the basic human rights of the citizens."

Whether in its secular and/or observant manifestations, Israel clearly discomfits Mr. Carter, a man who, even as president, considered himself in "full-time Christian service." Yet, in revealing his unease with the idea of Jewish statehood, Mr. Carter sets himself apart from many U.S. presidents before and after him, as well as from nearly 400 years of American Christian thought.

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http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110009438

Mr. Oren, a senior fellow at the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, is the author of "Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East," to be published by Norton in January.

I haven't read Carters book yet, but I'll take this guys opinion on it with a big block of salt.

I think he may be overstating the role Jewish restoration to Jerusalem played in 18th and 19th century US political and religious discourse to support his idea. We tended to concentrate on debating if and in what form we should dominate the Americas prior to the Spanish-American war.

He also implies a need of US pressure on Britain at the end of WWI in establishing a Jewish state as part of the British Palestinian mandate. That's incorrect There was a strong movement in Britain to establish a Jewish state by the mid 18th century:

Ideas of the restoration of the Jews in the Land of Israel entered the British public discourse in the 19th century.<14> Not all such attitudes were favorable towards the Jews; they were shaped in part by a variety of Protestant beliefs,<15> or by a streak of philo-Semitism among the classically educated British elite,<16> or by hopes to extend the Empire. (See The Great Game)

At the urging of Lord Shaftesbury, Britain established a consulate in Jerusalem in 1838, the first diplomatic appointment in the Land of Israel. In 1839, the Church of Scotland sent Andrew Bonar and Robert Murray M'Cheyne to report on the condition of the Jews in their land. Their report was widely published<17> and was followed by a "Memorandum to Protestant Monarchs of Europe for the restoration of the Jews to Palestine." In August 1840, The Times reported that the British government was considering Jewish restoration.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism#British_influence

The British Zionist movement was very strong,and the 1917 Balfour Declaration given to Lord Rothschild established Britains commitment to a Jewish homeland in Palestine, however duplicitous it was in respect to McMahon-Husayn and other agreements made with the Arabs. I have never seen any evidence that they sought Wilsons approval before signing it. After the war, the US led King-Crane commision advised against the British proposal,although it didn't become an official document because we didn't join the League of Nations.

Sorry if this was sort of a rant, but for some reason it kind of burns my biscuits when people try to downplay the responsibilities of the UK, France and other former European imperialists for creating so many of the worlds problems. The US has enough to answer for without taking on anyone elses load.