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The American Christian Zionist Dream

(Tablet) Walter Russell Mead - On March 5, 1891, evangelical minister William Blackstone presented a petition to President Benjamin Harrison asking him to use his influence to persuade European leaders to prevail upon the Ottoman sultan to open the province of Palestine for Jewish settlement and the creation of a Jewish national home. Among the 400 signatures on Blackstone's petition were J. P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, Cyrus McCormick, the editors of most of the leading American newspapers, leading clergymen from the East Coast and the Middle West, the chief justice of the Supreme Court, and the speaker of the House of Representatives. It had also been signed by prominent media corporations, including The New York Times. For many of the signers, the petition merely expressed the long-held belief among both religious and secular people of the 19th century that the Jews, like the Greeks and the Italians, could regain some of their ancient glory and greatness if freed from foreign rule and oppression. Blackstone presented a new version of his petition to Woodrow Wilson in 1916 and saw his principles enshrined in American law in 1922. On December 11, 1917, British forces under General Edmund Allenby entered Jerusalem unopposed as the Turks retreated, and for the first time since the Crusades a Christian power found itself in control of the city. The conquest of Jerusalem ignited a media firestorm across the U.S. The next year, Theodore Roosevelt wrote, "There can be no peace worth having" until "the Jews [are] given control of Palestine." The New York American commented in an editorial: "It is certainly true that the passage of Jerusalem into the hands of the Allies means the swift establishment of that re-gathered and redeemed Zion for which the world's Jews have dreamed ever since the tribes were scattered in the breaking up of Israel." Support for Zionist aspirations in Palestine quickly became part of the boilerplate foreign policy prescriptions of American politicians in both major political parties. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt backed this idea; so did Herbert Hoover and Calvin Coolidge. The writer, a fellow at the Hudson Institute, is Professor of Foreign Affairs and Humanities at Bard College. This is excerpted from his new book, The Arc of a Covenant: The United States, Israel, and the Fate of the Jewish People.
2022-06-30 00:00:00
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