Michael Oren

I recently finished Michael Oren's Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East: 1776 to the Present. The advantage of a blog is that I can say many things that the customary reviewer can't.

The book just came out so there will be a flurry of reviews and you will shortly know that the book is very well written, is the first of its kind to cover the subject and that the "Faith" part of the title will be new to nearly everyone. 

What I can say that can't be said in other venues is that every American Jew should read it or know the history it presents.

American mainline Protestants, during the second Great Awakening, as early as 1810 were adamantly in favor of the creation of Israel for the Jews in Palestine.  American Protestants aggressively, widely, with significant energy and funding sent missionaries to accomplish that task.  The powerful missionary movement to create an Israel for Jews in Palestine was an important religious force throughout America for the entire 19th Century.

I personally had seen and blogged about the Mormon and Templar settlements between Jaffa and Southern Tel Aviv created after the U.S. Civil War, but I had no idea of the depth, extent, vigor or importance of the movement in the U.S. and how early it started.

Oren makes it clear that many Presidents from Wilson to Truman to George W. Bush have been strongly shaped by this original 19th Century Protestant Zionism.

Many Lefty Jews have expressed fear that Evangelical Christians are not true supporters of Israel and would disappear overnight. Wrong! Wrong! Read the history.

Now the Lefty Jews will get their history right.  Evangelical Christians have been supporting Israel as a Jewish state for nearly two hundred years.  Jews are the ones who are late to the enlightenment.  Most American Jews were opposed to the State of Israel as late as 1958.  I remember.

Soon, American Lefty Jews will finally come to realize that Evangelicals are their true loyal allies. Hopefully, American Lefty Jews will also come to understand that "Let the Jews die" statements by Jimmy Carter, Wesley Clark, Al Sharpton, Cynthia McKinney, Michael Moore and other prominent Democrats, tell us who are the real people to worry about. 

The Democrat Left are the people that American Jews should fear.